France
France names 8 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
France Magical practice in pre-Roman France was vested in the druidic cast
An Encyclopaedia of Occultism (1920)
Magical practice in pre-Roman France was vested in the druidic cast, and was practically identical with that of the same body in Britain, from which, indeed, it drew its inspiration. It is not likely that Roman magic gained any footing in Gaul, but we have little evidence to show whether this was or was not the case. In the early Frankish period of the Merovingian dynasty, we find the baleful personality of Fredegonda, wife of Hilperic, king of Soissons, " a woman whose glance was witchcraft." She destroyed many people on the pretext of sorcery, but there is no doubt that she herself experimented in black magic , and protected many practitioners of the art. Thus she saved a sorceress who had been arrested by Ageric, bishop of Verdun, by hiding her in the palace. (See Fredegonda.) The practice of magic was not punished under the rule of the early French kings, except in those in high places, with whom it was regarded as a political offence, as in the case of the military leader Mummol, who was tortured by command of Hilperic for sorcery. One of the Salic laws attributed to Pharamond by Sigebert states that; "If any one shall testify that another has acted as hèrèburge or strioporte-titles applied to those who carry the copper vessel to the spot where the vampires perform their enchantments and if he fail to convict him, he shall be condemned hereby to a forfeit of 7,500 deniers, being If a vampire shall devour a man and 180 sous. be found guilty, she shall forfeit 8,000 deniers, being 200 sous." The Church legislated also against sorcerers and vampires, and the Council of Agde, in Languedoc, held in A.D. 506, pronounced excommunication against them. The first Council of Orleans, convened in 541, condemned divination and augury, and that of Narbonne, in 589, besides excommunicating all sorcerers, ordained that they should be sold as slaves for the benefit of the poor. Those who had dealings with the Devil were also condemned to be whipped by the same Council. Some extraordinary phenomena are alleged to have occurred in France during the reign of Pepin le Bref. The air seemed to be alive with human shapes, mirages filled the heavens, and sorcerers were seen among the clouds, scattering unwholesome powders and poisons with open hands; crops failed, cattle died, and many human beings perished. It is perhaps possible that such visions were stimulated by the teachings of the famous Kabalist, Zedekias , who presided over a school of occult science, where he refrained indeed from unveiling the hidden secrets of his art, and contented himself by spreading the theory of elemental spirits, who, he stated, had before the fall of man been subservient to him. It was thought that the visions alluded to above signified the descent of sylphs and salamanders in search of their former masters. Says Eliphas Levi : Voyages to the land of sylphs were talked of on all sides as we talk at the present day of animated tables and fluidic manifestations. The folly took possession even of strong minds, and it was time for an intervention on the part of the Church, which does not relish the supernatural being hawked in the public streets, seeing that such disclosures, by imperilling the respect due to authority and to the hierarchic chain of instruction, cannot be attributed to the spirit of order and light. The cloudphantoms were therefore arraigned and accused of being hell-born illusions, while the people anxious to get something into their hands-began a crusade against sorcerers. The public folly turned into a paroxysm of mania; strangers in country places were accused of descending from heaven and were killed without mercy; imbeciles confessed that they had been abducted by sylphs or demons; others who had boasted like this previously either would not or could not unsay it; they were burned or drowned, and, according to Garinet, the number who perished throughout the kingdom almost exceeds belief. It is the common catastrophe of dramas in which the first parts are played by ignorance or fear. "Such visionary epidemics recurred in the reigns following, and all the power of Charlemagne was put in action to calm the public agitation. An edict, afterwards renewed by Louis the Pious, forbade sylphs to manifest under the heaviest penalties. It will be understood that in the absence of the aerial beings the judgments fell upon those who had made a boast of having seen them, and hence they ceased to be seen. The ships in air sailed back to the port of oblivion, and no one claimed any longer to have journeyed through the blue distance. Other popular frenzies replaced the previous mania, while the romantic splendours of the great reign of Charlemagne furnished the makers of legends with new prodigies to believe and new marvels to relate." Around the figure of Charlemagne (q.v.) clusters such an immense amount of the matter of faëry that it is reserved for treatment in a special article, and it will suffice to state here that it almost partakes of the nature of true myth. It is stated that the Enchiridion (q.v.) (which may well be stigmatised as an early text-book of occult absurdity having no claim to figure in the true genealogy of occult literature) was presented to Charlemagne by Pope Leo III. Eliphas Levi presents a picturesque condition of affairs in the France of Charlemagne in the following passage: 66 We know that superstitions die hard and that degenerated Druidism had struck its roots deeply in the savage lands of the North. The recurring insurrections of Saxons testified to a fanaticism which was (a) always turbulent, and (b) incapable of repression by moral force alone. All defeated forms of worship-Roman paganism, Germanic idolatry, Jewish rancour conspired against victorious Christianity. Nocturnal assemblies took place; thereat the conspirators cemented their alliance with the blood of human victims; and a pantheistic idol of monstrous form, with the horns of a goat, presided over festivals which might be called agape of hatred. In a word, the Sabbath was still celebrated in every forest and wild if yet unreclaimed provinces. The adepts who attended them were masked and otherwise unrecognisable; the assemblies extinguished their lights and broke up before daybreak, the guilty were to be found everywhere, and they could be brought to book nowhere. It came about therefore that Charlemagne determined to fight them with their own weapons. France In those days, moreover, feudal tyrants were in league with sectarians against lawful authority; female sorcerers were attached to castles as courtesans; bandits who frequented the Sabbaths divided with nobles the blood-stained loot of rapine; feudal courts were at the command of the highest bidder; and the public burdens weighed with all their force only on the weak and poor. The evil was at its height in Westphalia, and faithful agents were despatched thither by Charlemagne entrusted with a secret mission. Whatsoever energy remained among the oppressed, whosoever still loved justice, whether among the people or among the nobility, were drawn by these emissaries together, bound by pledges and vigilance in common. To the initiates thus incorporated they made known the full powers which they carried from the emperor himself, and they proceeded to institute the Tribunal of Free Judges. A great deal of this, of course, is only what might be expected from the French magus. It is not likely that the Sabbath was yet celebrated in such an extreme manner as in later times, nor was the Vehmgericht founded by Charlemagne, or indeed, founded at all, for four and a half centuries after his day. From the reign of Robert the Pious to that of St. Louis, there is not much to relate that can strike the imagination of the student of occult history. In the time of the latter monarch flourished the famous Rabbi Jachiel, the celebrated Kabalist. There is some reason to believe that he had glimmerings of the uses of electricity, for on the approach of night a radiant star appeared in his lodging, the light being so brilliant that no eye could gaze thereon without being dazzled, while it darted rainbow colours. It appeared to be inexhaustible, and was never replenished with oil or other combustible substance. When the Rabbi was annoyed by intruders at his door he struck a nail fixed in his cabinet, producing simultaneously a blue spark on the head of the nail and the door-knocker, to which, if the intruder clung, he received a severe shock. Albertus Magnus (q.v.) lived at the same period. The next circumstance of interest which falls to be noted is the prosecutions of the Templars (q.v.) who were brought to trial by Philip the Fair. Other prosecutions for sorcery were those of Joan of Arc, Gilles de Laval (q.v.), lord of Raiz, the prototype of Bluebeard, a renowned sorcerer, who with two assistants, Prelati and Sillé, practised diabolical rites at his castle of Machecoul, celebrating the black mass in the most revolting manner. He had been in the habit of slaughtering children to assist him in his search for the philosopher's stone. We now near the period of those astounding prosecutions for sorcery which are fully noted under the article "Witchcraft" and elsewhere. As early as the thirteenth century the charge of sorcery had been made as one of the means of branding with infamy the heretical Waldenses (q.v.), who were accused of selling themselves to the Devil, and of holding sabbatical orgies where they did homage to the enemy of mankind. About the middle of the fifteenth century France became the theatre of wholesale oppression against suspected sorcerers, but one finds leading up to this a series of events which prove that the outburst in question was by no means a novelty in that country. In 1315 Enguerraud de Marigny, who had conducted the execution of the Templars a minister of Philip the Fair, was hanged along with an adventurer named Paviot, for attempting to compass the deaths of the Counts of Valois and St. Paul. In 1334 the Countess of Artois and her son were thrown into prison on a suspicion of sorcery. In 1393, in the reign of Charles VI., it was considered that his sister-in-law, the Duchess of Orleans, who was a viscomte and the daughter of the Duke of Milan, had rendered the King mad by sorcery. The ministers of the court resolved to pit a magician against her, and one Arnaud Guillaume (q.v.) was brought from Guienne as a suitable adversary to the noble lady. He possessed a book to which he gave the strange title of Smagorad, the original of which, he said, was given by God to Adam, to console him for the loss of his son Abel, and he asserted that the possessor of this volume could hold the stars in subjection, and command the four elements. He assured the King's advisers that Charles was suffering from the malignity of a sorcerer, but in the meantime the young monarch recovered, and the possessor of the patriarchal volume fell back into his original obscurity. Five years later the King had another attack, and two Augustine friars were sent from Guienne for the purpose of effecting a cure. But their conduct was so outrageous that they were executed. A third attack in 1403 was combated by two sorcerers of Dijon, Poinson and Briquet. For this purpose they established themselves in a thick wood not far from the gates of Dijon, where they made a magic circle of iron of immense weight, which was supported by iron columns of the height of a middle-sized man, and to which twelve chains of iron were attached. So great was the popular anxiety for the King's recovery, that the two sorcerers succeeded in persuading twelve of the principal persons of the town to enter the circle, and allow themselves to be fastened by the chains. The sorcerers then proceeded with their incantations, but they were altogether without result. The bailiff of Dijon, who was one of the twelve, and had averred his incredulity from the first, caused the sorcerers to be arrested, and they were burnt for their pretences. The Duke of Orleans appears to have fallen under the same suspicion of sorcery as his Italian consort. After his murder by order of the Duke of Burgundy-the commencement of those troubles which led to the desolation of France the latter drew up various heads of accusation against his victim as justifications of the crime, and one of these was, that the Duke of Orleans had attempted to compass his death by means of sorcery. According to this statement, he had received a magician-another apostate friar into his castle of Mountjoie, where he was employed in these sinister designs. He performed his magical ceremonies before sunrise on a neighbouring mountain, where two demons, named Herman and Astramon, appeared to him; and these became his active instruments in the prosecution of his design. About the year 1400 the belief in the nightly meetings of the witches' Sabbath had become almost universal. It would indeed be difficult to attempt to trace the origin of this practice, which does not seem altogether referable to the survival of pagan belief. (See Witchcraft.) The wholesale nature of the prosecutions against sorcerers and witches prove that there must have been an extraordinary number of them in the country. In Paris alone, in the time of Charles IX, there were no less than thirty thousand sorcerers, and it is computed that France contained more than three times that number in the reign of Henry III., not a town or village being exempt from their presence. They belonged to all classes, and generally met the same fate, regardless of rank, age or sex. Children of the tenderest years and nonagenarians were alike committed to the flames, and the terror of being publicly accused as a sorcerer hung like a black cloud over the life of every successful man, as the charge was one which envy readily seized upon for the destruction of its object. No elaborate or perfect creed regarding witchcraft had at this epoch been evolved in England, but in France and other continental countries it had been assuming a form systematic and complete. There were probably two reasons for this, the decrees of ecclesiastical councils and the numerous treatises of scholars who professed to illustrate their various France theories regarding sorcery by alleged statements from the mouths of its innumerable victims. Indeed the writings of these men served to standardise the sorcery creed of all continental countries. During the earlier part of the sixteenth century, trials for witchcraft in France are of rare occurrence, and there are no cases of great importance recorded till after the year 1560. In 1561 a number of persons were brought to trial at Vernon, accused of having held their Sabbath as witches in an old ruined castle in the shape of cats; and witnesses deposed to having seen the assembly, and to having suffered from the attacks of the pseudo-feline conspirators. But the court threw out the charge, as worthy only of ridicule. In 1564, three men and a woman were executed at Poitiers, after having been made to confess to various acts of sorcery; among other things, they said that they had regularly attended the witches' Sabbath, which was held three times a year, and that the demon who presided at it ended by burning himself to make powder for the use of his agents in mischief. In 1571, a mere conjurer, who played tricks upon cards, was thrown into prison in Paris, forced to confess that he was an attendant on the Sabbath, and then executed. In 1573, a man was burnt at Drôle, on the charge of having changed himself into a wolf, and in that form devoured several children. Several witches, who all confessed to having been at the Sabbaths, were in the same year condemned to be burnt in different parts of France. In 1578, another man was tried and condemned in Paris for changing himself into a wolf; and a man was condemned at Orleans for the same supposed crime.in 1583. As France was often infested by these rapacious animals, it is not difficult to conceive how popular credulity was led to connect their ravages with the crime of witchcraft. The belief in what were in England called wer-wolves (men-wolves), and in France loups-garous, was a very ancient superstition throughout Europe. It is asserted by a serious and intelligent writer of the time that, in 1588, a gentleman, looking out of the window of his château in a village two leagues from Apchon, in the mountains of Auvergne, saw one of his acquaintances going a-hunting, and begged he would bring him home some game. The hunter, while occupied in the chase, was attacked by a fierce she-wolf, and after having fired at it without effect, struck it with his hunting-knife, and cut off the paw of his right fore-leg, on which it immediately took to flight. The hunter took up the paw, threw it into his bag with the rest of his game, and soon afterwards returned to his friend's château, and told him of his adventure, at the same time putting his hand into the bag to bring forth the wolf's paw in confirmation of his story. What was his surprise at drawing out a lady's hand, with a gold ring on one finger! His friend's astonishment was still greater when he recognised the ring as one which he had given to his own wife; and, descending hastily into the kitchen, he found the lady warming herself by the fire, with her right arm wrapped in her apron. This he at once seized, and found to his horror that the hand was cut off. The lady confessed that it was she who, in the form of a wolf, had attacked the hunter; she was, in due course of time, brought to her trial and condemned, and was immediately afterwards burnt at Rioms. In 1578, a witch was burnt at Compiègne; she confessed that she had given herself to the devil, who appeared to her as a great black man, on horseback, booted and spurred. Another avowed witch was burnt the same year, who also stated that the evil one came to her in the shape of a black man. In 1582 and 1583, several witches were burnt, all frequenters of the Sabbaths. Several local councils at this date passed severe laws against witchcraft, and from that time to the end of the century, the number of miserable persons put to death in France under the accusation was very great. In the course only of fifteen years, from 1580 to 1595, and only in one province, that of Lorraine, the president Remigius burnt nine hundred witches, and as many more fled out of the country to save their lives; and about the close of the century, one of the French judges tells us that the crime of witchcraft had become so common that there were not jails enough to hold the prisoners, or judges to hear their causes. A trial which he had witnessed in 1568, induced Jean Bodin, a learned physician, to compose his book De la Demonomanie des Sorciers, which was ever afterwards the text-book on this subject. Among the English witches, the evil one generally came in person to seduce his victims, but in France and other countries, this seems to have been unnecessary, as each person, when once initiated, became seized with an uncontrollable desire of making converts, whom he or she carried to the Sabbath to be duly enrolled. Bodin says, that one witch was enough to corrupt five hundred honest persons. The infection quickly ran through a family, and was generally carried down from generation to generation, which explained satisfactorily, according to the learned commentator on demonology just mentioned, the extent to which the evil had spread itself in his days. The novice, at his or her reception, after having performed the preliminaries, and in general received a new and burlesque rite of baptism, was marked with the sign of the demon in some part of the body least exposed to observation, and performed the first criminal act of compliance which was afterwards to be so frequently repeated, the evil one presenting himself on these occasions in the form of either sex, the reverse to that of the victim. Towards the end of the sixteenth century, the witchcraft infatuation had risen to its greatest height in France, and not only the lower classes, but persons of the highest rank in society were liable to suspicions of dealing in sorcery. We need only mention that such charges were publicly made against King Henry III. and Queen Catherine de Medicis, and that, early in the following century, they became the ground of state trials which had a fatal conclusion. In 1610, during the reign of Louis XIII., occurred the cause célèbre of the marechale d'Ancre. Among the servants attached to the train of Marie de Medici was a certain Eleanora Dori, who married one, Concini, a prodigal spendthrift. Marie de Medici, as guardian to her son, was virtually ruler of France, and considerable power was exercised by these favourites of hers. The result was that the peers of France leagued themselves together against the upstarts, but with little result at first, as Concini was created Marechal of France, with the title of Marquis d'Ancre. His wife, who was very superstitious, fell sick, and attributed her ill-health to the effects of sorcery. The upshot was that d'Ancre was assassinated by the nobles during a hunting expedition. The mob dragged the corpse of d'Ancre from its grave and hanged it on the Pont Neuf. His wretched widow was accused of sorcery, and of having bewitched the Queen Mother. The exorcists who had assisted her to free herself from illness had advised the sacrifice of a cock, and this was now represented as a sacrifice to the infernal powers. Added to this, the astrological nativities of the royal family were found in her possession, as were, it is said, a quantity of magical books, and a great number of magical characters. After being tortured without result she was beheaded and burnt, and strangely enough the anger of the Parisian mob turned to general commiseration. Many other interesting cases occurred in France in the seventeenth century, among others that of the Ursulines at Aix (q.v.), for the enchantment of whom Louis Gaufridi was burnt, the Nuns of Louviais, and the nuns of Assonne. The case of the Ursulines of Loudon France (q.v.), is fully dealt with elsewhere. (See Urban Grandier). The eighteenth century in France was fairly prolific in occult history. At a time when Europe was credulous about nothing but magic, France did not escape the prevailing craze. Perhaps the most striking personality of this age in the occult connection was the Comte de Saint Germain (q.v.), who was credited with possessing the secrets of alchemy and magic. His family connections were unknown, and his conversation suggested that he had lived for many centuries. Another mysterious adept was an alchemist calling himself Lascaris (q.v.) who literally sowed his path through Europe with gold. Then followed Cagliostro (q.v.), who attained a fame unrivalled in the history of French occultism. He founded many masonic lodges throughout the country, and assisted in many ways to bring about the French Revolution. A school of initiates was founded by Martines de Pasqually, which appears in some measure to have incorporated the teachings of the later European adepts. One of the most important figures at this time is Louis Claude de Saint-Martin, known as "Le Philosophe Inconnu" who came under the influence of Pasqually (q.v.), and later, under that of the writings of Boehme, whose works he translated. Cazotte (q.v.) was the first of these names who were associated with both magic and the Revolution, which, indeed, owed much in its inception to those mysterious brotherhoods of France and Germany, who during the eighteenth century sowed the seeds of equality and Illuminism throughout Europe. Another was Loiséaut (q.v.), who formed a mystical society, which met in great secrecy, awaiting a vision of John the Baptist, who came to them to foretell the Revolution. The spiritual director of this circle was a monk named Dom Gerle (q.v.) one of the first mesmerists in Paris, who is said to have foretold the dreadful fame of Robespierre by means of Catherine Théot, his medium. He was expelled by the members of the circle, acting on the advice of one of their number, Sister Françoise André, who cherished a notion to preserve the crown for the future reign of Louis XVII., and thus gave rise to that multitude of stories connected with the so-called "Saviours" of the youthful "Capet." This sect, or a portion of it, became notorious under the leadership of Vintras (q.v.), when its meetings degenerated into the most dreadful debauchery. The appearance of Mlle. Lenormand as a prophetess at the end of the eighteenth century may be said to close the occult history of that age. With the beginning of the nineteenth century we find the craze for magnetism rampant. In his works The Reform of Philosophy and Yes or No, Wronski pretended to have discovered the first theorems of the Kabala, and later beguiled rich persons of weak intellect into paying him large sums in return for knowledge of the Absolute. The Saviours of Louis XVII. were formally condemned in 1853 by the Pope as practitioners of black magic, but they in turn condemned the Pope, and their leader, Vintras, constituted himself Sovereign Pontiff, but he was arrested on the charge of roguery and after five years' imprisonment, found an asylum in England. The Baron du Potet did much to advance the science of Mesmer and by this time was being seriously followed by Cahagnet and others (See Mesmerism). In the middle of the nineteenth century all sorts of absurdities swayed occult Paris. The tale of Alphonse Esquiros (q.v.) entitled The Magician founded a school of magic phantasy, which was assiduously nursed by Henri Delaage (q.v.), who was said to have the gift of ubiquity, and who made a collection of processes from the old magicians for acquiring physical beauty. Spiritualism. The Comte d'Ourches was the first to introduce into France automatic writing and table-writing. Baron Guldenstubbé, in his Practical Experimental Pneumatology; or, the Reality of Spirits and the Marvellous Phenomena of their Direct Writing, gives an account of his discovery as follows: "It was in the course of the year 1850, or about three years prior to the epidemic of table-rapping, that the author sought to introduce into France the circles of American spiritualism, the mysterious Rochester knockings and the purely automatic writings of mediums. Unfortunately he met with many obstacles raised by other mesmerists. Those who were committed to the hypothesis of a magnetic fluid, and even those who styled themselves Spiritual Mesmerists, but who were really inferior inducers of somnambulism, treated the mysterious knockings of American spiritualism as visionary follies. It was therefore only after more than six months that the author was able to form his first circle on the American plan, and then thanks to the zealous concurrence of M. Rousaan, a former member of the Sociètè des Magnètiseurs Spiritualistes, a simple man who was full of enthusiasm for the holy cause of spiritualism. We were joined by a number of other persons, amongst whom was the Abbé Châtel, founder of the Eglise Française, who, despite his rationalistic tendencies, ended by admitting the reality of objective and supernatural revelation, as an indispensable condition of spiritualism and all practical religions. Setting aside the moral conditions which are equally requisite, it is known that American circles are based on the distinction of positive and electric or negative magnetic currents. 66 The circles consist of twelve persons, representing in equal proportions the positive and negative or sensitive elements. This distinction does not follow the sex of the members, though generally women are negative and sensitive, while men are positive and magnetic. The mental and physical constitution of each individual must be studied before forming the circles, for some delicate women have masculine qualities, while some strong men are, morally speaking, women. A table is placed in a clear and ventilated spot; the medium is seated at one end and entirely isolated; by his calm and contemplative quietude he serves as a conductor for the electricity, and it may be noted that a good somnambulist is usually an excellent medium. The six electrical or negative dispositions, which are generally recognised by their emotional qualities and their sensibility, are placed at the right of the medium, the most sensitive of all being next him. The same rule is followed with the positive personalities, who are at the left of the medium, with the most positive next to him. In order to form a chain, the twelve persons each place their right hand on the table. Observe that the medium or mediums, if there be more than one, are entirely isolated from those who form the chain. "After a number of séances, certain remarkable phenomena have been obtained, such as simultaneous shocks, felt by all present at the moment of mental evocation on the part of the most intelligent persons. It is the same with mysterious knockings and other strange sounds; many people, including those least sensitive, have had simultaneous visions, though remaining in the ordinary waking state. Sensitive persons have acquired that most wonderful gift of mediumship, namely, automatic writing, as the result of an invisible attraction which uses the nonintelligent instrument of a human arm to express its ideas. For the rest, non-sensitive persons experience the mysterious influence of an external wind, but the effect is not strong enough to put their limbs in motion. All these phenomena, obtained according to the mode of American spiritualism, have the defect of being more or less indirect, because it is impossible in these experiments to dispense, with the mediation of a human being or medium. It is France the same with the table-turning which invaded Europe in the middle of the year 1853. The author has had many table experiences with his honourable friend, the Comte d'Ourches, one of the most instructed persons in Magic and the Occult Sciences. We attained by degrees the point when tables moved, apart from any contact whatever, while the Comte d'Ourches has caused them to rise, also without contact. The author has made tables rush across a room with great rapidity, and not only without contact but without the magnetic aid of a circle of sitters. The vibrations of piano-chords under similar circumstances took place on January 20, 1856, in the presence of the Comte de Szapary and Comte d'Ourches. Now all such phenomena are proof positive of certain occult forces, but they do not demonstrate adequately the real and substantial existence of unseen intelligences, independent of our will and imagination, though the limits of these have been vastly extended in respect of their possibilities. Hence the reproach made against American spiritualists, because their communications with the world of spirits are so insignificant in character, being confined to mysterious knockings and other sound vibrations. As a fact, there is no direct phenomenon at once intelligent and material, independent of our will and imagination, to compare with the direct writing of spirits, who have neither been invoked or evoked, and it is this only which offers irrefutable proof as to the reality of the supernatural world. "The author, being always in search of such proof, at once intelligent and palpable, concerning the substantial reality of the supernatural world, in order to demonstrate by certain facts the immortality of the soul, has never wearied of addressing fervent prayers to the Eternal, that He might vouchsafe to indicate an infallible means for strengthening that faith in immortality which is the eternal basis of religion. The Eternal, Whose mercy is infinite, has abundantly answered this feeble prayer. On August Ist, 1856, the idea came to the author of trying whether spirits could write directly, that is, apart from the presence of a medium. Remembering the marvellous direct writing of the Decalogue, communicated to Moses, and that other writing, equally direct and mysterious, at the feast of Belshazzar, recorded by Daniel; having further heard about those modern mysteries of Stratford in America, where certain strange and illegible characters were found upon strips of paper, apparently apart from mediumship, the author sought to establish the actuality of such important phenomena, if indeed within the limits of possibility. "He therefore placed a sheet of blank letter paper and a sharply pointed pencil in a box, which he then locked, and carried the key about him, imparting his design to no one. Twelve days he waited in vain, but what was his astonishment on August 13th, 1856, when he found certain mysterious characters traced on the paper. He repeated the experiment ten times on that day, placing a new sheet of paper each time in the box, with the same result invariably. On the following day he made twenty experiments but left the box open, without losing sight of it. He witnessed the formation of characters and words in the Esthonian language with no motion of the pencil. The latter being obviously useless he decided to dispense with it and placed blank paper sometimes on a table of his own, sometimes on the pedestals of old statues, on sarcophagi, on urns, etc., in the Louvre, at St. Denis, at the Church of St. Etienne du Mont, etc., Similar experiments were made in different cemetries of Paris, but the author has no liking for cemetries, while most saints prefer the localities where they have lived on earth to those in which their mortal remains are laid to rest." We are now launched upon the sea of modern spiritualism in France, which occupied the entire activities of occultists in that country for several decades, and which it will be better to trace from the period of its importation into the country. Very soon after public attention had been drawn to the subject of magnetism in France by Mesmer and d'Eslon, several men distinguished for learning and scientific attainments, followed up their experiments with great success. Amongst these was the Baron Dupotet, whose deep interest in the subject of magnetism induced him to publish a periodical which, under the title of Journal de Magnètismestill forms a complete treasury of well collated facts, and curious experiments in occult force. From this work we learn that the Baron's investigations commenced in the year 1836, since which period up to 1848, he chronicled the production of the following remarkable phases of phenomena, the occurrence of which is testified to by numerous scientific and eminent witnesses. Through the Baron's magnetized subjects was evolved, clairvoyance, trancespeaking, and healing; stigmata or raised letters and figures on the subject's body; elevation of somnambulists into the air; insensibility to fire, injury or touch. In the presence of the magnetized objects also, heavy bodies were moved without human contact, and objects were brought from distant places through walls and closed doors. Sometimes the "Lucides" described scenes in the spirit world, found lost property, prophesied and spoke in foreign languages. 66 66 In 1840, Baron Dupotet writes that he had "rediscovered in magnetism the magic of antiquity." " Let the savants," he says, reject the doctrine of spiritual appearances ; the enquirer of to-day is compelled to believe it; from an examination of undeniable facts." "If the knowledge of ancient magic is lost, all the facts remain on which to reconstruct it." But of all the revealers to whom French Spiritualism is indebted for indubitable proof of super-mundane intercourse, none stands more prominent in truthfulness and worth, than M. Cahagnet, the well-known author of "The Celestial Telegraph," a work translated into English in 1848. M. Cahagnet was an unlearned mechanic, a man of the people and though a sensible and interesting writer, was neither well read, nor highly educated. He affirms that he was a "materialist" when first his attention was attracted to the subject of animal magnetism, but being of a thoughtful nature, he determined to devote all the leisure he could spare to a thorough examination of its possibilities. When he found that he possessed the power to induce the magnetic sleep in others, he proceeded on the plan then generally adopted by mesmerists, namely, to try how far he could succeed in biologizing his subjects, that is to say, to substitute his own senses, mind, and will, for those of the sleeper. 66 In the course of these experiments M. Cahagnet discovered that he could effect remarkable cures of disease, and being naturally of a benevolent disposition, he determined to bend all his energies in this desirable direction. He soon found, however, that he was destined to realize the aphorism, he builded wiser than he knew." A new and most perplexing obstacle arose to confound his philosophy and scatter his theories to the winds; this was the fact, that some of his subjects, instead of representing what simply he willed, or manifesting-in accordance with his views of biology-merely the influence of his mind, began to transcend both will and mind, and wander off in space, to regions they persisted in calling the "land of spirits," and to describe people, whom they emphatically affirmed to be the souls of those whom the world called dead. France For a long time M. Cahagnet strove vehemently to combat what he termed these "wild hallucinations," but when he found them constantly recurring, and vast numbers of those who had come to witness the experiments in magnetism recognising in the descriptions given by the somnambulists the spirits of those whom they had known on earth, and mourned as dead, conviction became inevitable, and the magnetizer, like his visitors, was compelled to admit a new and wonderful phase of lucidity, and one which carried the vision of the clairvoyant from earth to heaven, and pierced the veil which separated the mortal from the realms of immortality. It was after a long series of carefully conducted experiments of the above description, that M. Cahagnet was finally persuaded to give the results of his wonderful séances to the world, under the name and style of The Celestial Telegraph, or, Secrets of the Life to Come. 66 The author of Art Magic says: The narrow conservatism of the age, and the pitiful jealousy of the Medical Faculty, rendered it difficult and harassing to conduct magnetic experiments openly in Europe within several years of Mesmer's decease. Still such experiments were not wanting, and to show their results, we give a few excerpts from the correspondence between the famous French Magnetists, MM. Deleuze and Billot, from the years 1829 to 1840. By these letters, published in 1836, it appears that M. Billot commenced his experiments in magnetizing as early as 1789, and that during forty years, he had an opportunity of witnessing facts in clairvoyance, ecstasy, and somnambulism, which at the time of their publication transcended the belief of the general mass of readers. On many occasions in the presence of entranced subjects, spirits recognised as having once lived on earth in mortal form-would come in bodily presence before the eyes of an assembled multitude and at request bring flowers, fruits, and objects, removed by distance from the scene of the experiments. "M. Deleuze frankly admits that his experience was more limited to those phases of somnambulism in which his subjects submitted to amputations and severe surgical operations without experiencing the slightest pain. In a letter dated 1831 M. Billot writing to Deleuze says:- ""I repeat, I have seen and known all that is permitted to man. I have seen the stigmata arise on magnetized subjects; I have dispelled obsessions of evil spirits with a single word. I have seen spirits bring those material objects I told you of, and when requested, make them so light that they would float, and, again, a small boiteau de bonbons was rendered so heavy that I failed to move it an inch until the power was removed. 66 6 " To those who enjoyed the unspeakable privilege of listening to the somnambules" of Billot, Deleuze, and Cahagnet, another and yet more striking feature of unanimous revelation was poured forth. Spirits of those who had passed away from earth strong in the faith of Roman Catholicism-often priests and dignitaries of that conservative Church, addressing prejudiced believers in their former doctrine, asserted that there was no creed in Heaven -no sectarian worship, or ecclesiastical dogmatism there prevailing. 66 6 They taught that God was a grand Spiritual Sunlife on earth a probation-the spheres, different degrees of comprehensive happiness or states of retributive suffering-each appropriate to the good or evil deeds done on earth. They described the ascending changes open to every soul in proportion to his own efforts to improve. They all insisted that man was his own judge, incurred a penalty or reward for which there was no substitution. They taught nothing of Christ, absolutely denied the idea of vicarious atonement and represented man as his own Saviour or destroyer. They spoke of arts, sciences, and continued activities, as if the life beyond was but an extension of the present on a greatly improved scale. Descriptions of the radiant beauty, supernal happiness, and ecstatic sublimity manifested by the blest spirits who had risen to the spheres of Paradise, Heaven, and the glory of angelic companionships melts the heart, and fills the soul with irresistible yearning, to lay down life's weary burdens and be at rest with them.''" Having shown that Spiritualism arose in France as in Germany from the awakening of psychic powers evolved by magnetism, and traced the footprints of the great temple builders who have laid the foundation stones of the spiritual edifice in the human system and steadily worked upwards from matter to force, and from thence to spirit in every gradation of sphere, life and progress, we recall the pithy words of the Baron de Potet, who, in addressing the would-be leaders of public opinion in his essay on the Philosophical Teaching of Magnetism," says: 66 "You savants of our country; you have not shown yourselves better informed than the Siamese. "For these sixty years it has been shouted in your ears: The Magnetizers march to the discovery of a moral world; all the phenomena they produce indisputably proves its existence. "You have declared that they were impostors, imbeciles, and the most illustrious amongst you have only pronounced a verdict which will attest to future ages your ignorance or your insincerity. 66 Before the soul is disengaged from matter, it can, and does, converse with pure spirits. Already it can gaze prophetically on its own future destiny, by regarding the condition of those who have gone before but a stepyet one which the eye of spirit alone can measure, and if men are spirits already, who can stay the eagle glance of the soul into the land of its own inheritance?" In following up the history of Spiritualism in France, although we find it has gained an immense foothold, and exerted a wide-spread influence upon the popular mind, it is nevertheless evident, that one of the chief obstacles to its general acceptance has been its lack of internal unity, and the antagonistic sentiments which have prevailed amongst its acknowledged leaders. Two of those who have figured most prominently in the grand drama of French Spiritualism, and in all probability exerted more influence upon public opinion than any other members of its dramatis persona, were MM. Allan Kardec and Pierart, the respective editors of the two leading Spiritual journals, entitled La Revue Spirite and La Revue Spiritualiste. These may also be regarded as the representatives of the two opposing factions known as Spiritualists and Spiritists, the former teaching that the soul of man undergoes but one mortal birth, and continues its progress through eternity in spiritual states, the latter affirming the doctrine of Re-incarnation, and alleging that the one spirit in man can and does undergo many incarnations in different mortal forms. M. Kardec and his followers represented the "Spiritists" or Re-incarnationists-M. Pierart leading the ranks of the opposing faction most commonly called Spiritualists. In respect to the question of testimony, it must be remembered that M. Kardec derived his communications chiefly from those writing and trance mediums who might have proved the most susceptible to his influence, and is said to have persistently banished from his circles, not only Mr. Home, M. Bredif, and other physical mediums, but all those who did not endorse his favourite dogma through their communications. Says the author of Nineteenth Century Miracles: It France must not be supposed that the schism which divided the two leaders of French Spiritualism was confined to the immediate sphere of action in which they moved. Scattered sympathisers with the writings of Allan Kardec, may be found all over the Continent of Europe, and in small numbers in America also. Few people who read works put forward with authoritative pretentions have the faculty of thoroughly digesting what they read, hence, when M. Kardec's books were translated into the English language, and it became the publisher's interest to aid in their circulation, they found more readers than thinkers, and their plausible style attracted more admiration than sincere conviction. In France, no doubt M. Kardec's personal influence, and strong phychological power, admirably fitted him for a propagandist, and when we remember how readily any doctrines eloquently advocated will command adherents, especially among restless and excitable natures, we need be at no loss to discover why M. Kardec's writings have become so popular and his opinions so generally accepted by his readers. Little or no spiritual literature was disseminated in the French language when Allan Kardec's works were first published. He possessed that indomitable energy and psychological influence in which his much harassed rival Pierart was wanting. Thus in a measure, the field of Continental spiritual propagandism was his own, nor did he fail to make use of his great opportunities. "The successes achieved by Kardec's journal, La Revue Spirite, communicated a wave of influence also, which propagated journals of a similar character all over the country. Thus in 1864, there were no less than ten spiritualistic periodicals published in France, under fhe following titles: La Revue Spirite, La Revue Spiritualiste, and L'Avenir, Paris; four Spiritist journals published in Bordeaux, which, in 1865, became merged into L' Union Spirite Bordelaise; La Medium Evangelique, Toulouse; L'Echo d'outre Tombe, Marseilles; and La Vérité, Lyons. The editors of these journals are said to have been all followers of Allan Kardec, with the exception of M. Pierart, editor of La Revue Spiritualiste." It must be remarked that the doctrines of the Re-incarnationists, although defended with great ability by their propagandists, who included many of the most capable minds of France, were not suffered to pass without severe castigation on the part of their English neighbours; and it becomes necessary to note how the French spiritual schism was received on the other side of the Channel. In the London Spiritual Magazine of 1865, the editor, in commenting on the ominous silence of the Spirite journals concerning Dr. Maldigny's opera of Swedenborg says:- 66 It is worthy of note that the journals of the Kardec school, so far as we have seen them, do not take the least notice of this opera. The Avenir of Paris, which appears weekly, but greatly wants facts, has not a word to say about it.... It is greatly to be regretted that the main object of the Kardecian journals seems to be, not the demonstration of the constantly recurring facts of Spiritualism, but the deification of Kardec's doctrine of Re-incarnation. "To this doctrine-which has nothing to do with Spiritualism, even if it had a leg of reason or fact to stand onall the strength, and almost all the space of these journals is devoted. "These are the things which give the enemies of Spiritualism a real handle against it, and bring it into contempt with sober minds. Re-incarnation is a doctrine which cuts up by the roots all individual identity in the future existence. It desolates utterly that dearest yearning of the human heart for reunion with its loved ones in a permanent world. If some are to go back into fresh physical bodies, and bear new names, and new natures, if they are to become respectively Tom Styles, Ned Snooks, and a score of other people, who shall ever hope to meet again with his friends, wife, children, brothers and sisters? When he enters the spirit-world and enquires for them, he will have to learn that they are already gone back to earth, and are somebody else, the sons and daughters of other people, and will have to become over and over the kindred of a dozen other families in succession ! Surely, no such most cheerless crochet could bewitch the intellects of any people, except under the most especial bedevilment of the most sarcastic and mischievous of devils." In the January number for 1866, a still stronger article on this subject appears from the pen of Wm. Howitt, who writes the following fearless words of protest against the doctrine of Re-incarnation : "In the Avenir of November 2nd, M. Pezzani thinks he has silenced M. Pierart, by asserting that without Reincarnation all is chaos and injustice in God's. creation: 'In this world there are rich and poor, oppressed and oppressors, and without Re-incarnation, God's justice could not be vindicated.' That is to say, in M. Pezzani's conception, God has not room in the infinite future to punish and redress every wrong, without sending back souls again and again into the flesh. M. Pezzani's idea, and that of his brother Re-incarnationists is, that the best way to get from Paris to London is to travel any number of times from Paris to Calais and back again. We English, that the only way is to go on to London at once. to M. Pezzani's notions of God's injustice without Reincarnation, if souls were re-incarnated a score of times, injustice between man and man, riches and poverty, oppression and wrong, all the enigmas of social inequality would remain just then as now. ... As "In noticing these movements in the Spiritist camp in France, we should be doing a great injustice if we did not refer to the zealous, eloquent, and unremitting exertions of M. Pierart in the Revue Spiritualists, to expose and resist the errors of the Spirite to which we have alluded. The doctrine of Re-incarnation, M. Pierart has persistently resisted and denounced as at once false, unfounded on any evidence, and most pernicious to the character of Spiritualism." Allan Kardec died on March 31st, 1869. Notwithstanding the fact that the experimental method of receiving communications through physical mediumship was not in favour with M. Allan Kardec and his followers, there is an abundant amount of phenomena of all kinds recorded in M. Pierart's excellent journal, La Revue Spiritualiste, also in many other European journals devoted to the subject. From this we are about to select such facts of a representative character as will give a general view of French Spiritualism in the nineteenth century. The celebrated. Curé D'Ars," the founder of the D'Ars "Providence," and many other noble works of charity, Jean Baptiste Vianney, was born in the vicinity of Lyons, in 1786, in a humble sphere of life. His natural capacity was by no means remarkable, and at school he was only remembered as a somewhat dull scholar. Circumstances having opened up the way for his becoming a priest, although he had only Latin enough to say mass, and no learning beyond the routine of his profession, yet his amiable nature and unaffected piety won him friends wherever he went. After some changes of fortune and the rejection of two good offers of rich positions, which in his extreme humility he did not deem himself fit for, he accepted the pastoral charge of the little agricultural village of D'Ars, now in the arrondisement of Trevoux. Very soon his reputation for beneficence drew round him a much larger circle of poor dependents than he could provide for, and then it was that he commenced his extra- France ordinary life of faith, supplicating in fervent prayer for whatever means were necessary to carry out his divine mission of blessing to his unfortunate fellow creatures. In this way the sphere of his benevolence, and the wonderful results of the means he employed to maintain it, reached proportions that could scarcely be credited. But now a still more wonderful thing was to happen in the enchanted region of D'Ars. Persons afflicted with disease began to experience sudden cures whilst praying before the altar, or making confessions to the Curé. The fame of this new miracle soon spread abroad, until the Abbé Monnin declares that upwards of 20,000 persons annually came from Germany, Italy, Belgium, and all parts of France, and even from England, and that in less than six years this number increased to an average of 80,000. Diseases of every kind that had been pronounced incurable, were dissipated at once. The indefatibagle Curé gave himself up to the work, heart and soul. His church stood open day and night, and the immense crowds that surrounded it, were obliged to wait for hours and sometimes days, to reach the good healer. No one was allowed to take precedence of the rest, except in cases of extreme poverty or extreme suffering. Princes, nobles, and great ladies, often drove up as near as they could to the church in grand carriages, and manifested the utmost astonishment when informed that notwithstanding their rank, they could not be admitted except in turn. The Curé only permitted himself to take four hours sleep, namely from eleven to three, and when he came to the confessional again, the church and all the approaches to it were crowded with those who had waited all night to secure their places. Omnibuses were established to convey patients from Lyons to D'Ars, and the Saône was covered with boats full of anxious pilgrims. There can be no doubt that the first well marked impulse which experimental spiritualism received through the invocatory processes of the circle, in France, as in many other countries of Europe, was due to the visits of Mr. D. D. Home, the celebrated non-professional physical medium, and subsequently to the large influx of professional mediums, who found in France an excellent field for the demonstration of their peculiar gfts. Of Mr. Home's séances it would be superfluous to write, he himself having related them in two volumes published at different periods of his career, and his many admiring friends having sufficiently described the marvels of which they were witnesses in numerous magazines and newspaper articles. Mr. Home's manifestations were given in France almost exclusively to personages of rank, or those distinguished by literary fame. He was a guest of royalty, the nobility, and persons of the highest position. During his residence in Paris, under the Imperial régime, he was a frequent and ever-welcome visitor at the court of the late Emperor Louis Napoleon. A record of the manifestations produced through his mediumship was kept by command of the Empress, and frequently read to her favoured friends. Amongst these memoranda is one which went the round of the papers at the time of its occurrence, hence there can be no impropriety in alluding to it now. It stated that on one occasion a séance was held at the Tuileries, when none were present save the Emperor, the Empress, the Duchess de Montebello, and Mr. D. D. Home. On the table were placed pen, ink, and paper, and presently a spirit hand was seen, which dipped the pen in the ink and deliberately wrote the name of the first Napoleon, in a perfect facsimile of that monarch's handwriting. The Emperor asked if he might be permitted to kiss this wonderful hand, when it instantly rose to his lips, subsequently passing to those of the Empress, and Mr. Home. The Emperor carefully preserved this precious autograph, ⚫ and inscribed with it a memorandum to the effect that the hand was warm, soft, and resembled exactly that of his great predecessor and uncle. As an evidence of the wide popularity to which the subject of Spiritualism had attained in 1869, M. Pierart quotes in one of his numbers of that year, an article from the Siècle, a leading paper, but one which has hitherto contained many notices inimical to Spiritualism. The writer, M. Eugène Bonnemère, says: 66 Although somnambulism has been a hundred times annihilated by the Academy of Medicine, it is more alive than ever in Paris; in the midst of all the lights of the age, it continues, right or wrong, to excite the multitude. Protean in its forms, infinite in its manifestations, if you put it out of the door, it knocks at the window; if that be not opened, it knocks on the ceiling, on the walls; it raps on the table at which you innocently seat yourselves to dine or for a game of whist. If you close your ears to its sounds, it grows excited, strikes the table, whirls it about in a giddy maze, lifts up its feet, and proceeds to talk through mediumship, as the dumb talk with their fingers. "You have all known the rage for table-turning. At one time we ceased to ask after each other's health, but asked how your table was. 'Thank you, mine turns beautifully; and how goes yours on?' Everything turned ; hats and the heads in them. One was led almost to believe that a circle of passengers being formed round the mainmast of a ship of great tonnage, and a magnetic chain thus established, they might make the vessel spin round till it disappeared in the depth of the ocean, as a gimlet disappears in a deal board. The Church interfered; it caused its thunders to roar, declaring that it was Satan himself who thus raised the devil in the tables, and having formally forbade the world to turn, it now forbade the faithful to turn tables, hats, brains, or ships of huge size. But Satan held his own. The sovereign of the nether world passed into a new one, and that is the reason that America sends us mediums, beginning so gloriously with the famous Home, and ending with the Brothers Davenport. One remembers with what a frenzy everyone precipitated himself in pursuit of mediums. Everyone wished to have one of his own; and when you introduced a young man into society, you did not say, 'He is a good waltzer,' but, 'He is a medium.' Official science has killed and buried this Somnambulism a score of times; but it must have done it very badly, for there it is as alive as ever, only christened afresh with a new name." Amongst the many distinguished adherents of Spiritualism in the department of French literature, none have more bravely asserted and defended their belief than Camille Flammarion, the celebrated astronomer; Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, and Victorien Sardou, the renowned writer of French comedy. M. Sardou was himself a medium of singularly happy endowments. He executed a number of curious drawings, purporting to represent scenes in the spirit world, amongst which was an exquisite and complex work of art entitled, "The House of Mozart." Francis I., Duke of Brittany : (See Summons by the Dying.)
France a republic of S
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a republic of S. W. Europe; bounded on the N. and N. E. by of Dover, English the North Sea, Strait E. and S. E. Channel, and Belgium; it from Italy by the Alps, separating , and Switzerland, German Empire, and the in Mediterranean; S. by the Mediterranean Sicily." Returning to and the Pyrenees, that separate it from Atlantic Ocean. Spain; and W. by the Treaty with By the terms of the Peace on June 28, 1919, Germany signed was transferred to Alsace-Lorraine France, to date from the armistice of November 11, 1918. The districts of Lor- Lower Alsace, Upper Alsace and of Basraine became the Departments Rhin, Alsace; Haut-Rhin; and Moselle. The total area added to France was 5,605 square miles, with a population in the total addition of 1,874,014, making the popuarea 212,659 square miles and lation 41,475,523. Topography-Generally, France may descending be said to lie in a gently mountains and the slope between the are the sea. The principal mountains Alps, designated in their various_parts between France as the Maritime Alps, , bounding and Italy; the Cottian Alps Graian Alps, the province of Savoy; ; the , and between France and Switzerland St. Gottthe Pennine Alps, reaching to the Alps in the hard. Branch ranges of more or interior make the whole country spurs the less mountainous. Of these Dauphiné, and Alps of Valais, Savoy, Chartreuse Faucigny, and the Great . Next group, are the most important are the Pyrein importance to the Alps entire Spanish nees, across nearly the 300 miles boundary, and then N. nearly . Cévennes Moun- This range, called the Côte d'Or. The tains, is continued by the the Côte d'Or with the Faucilles connect . Vosges range on the Swiss frontier In the mountains of Limthe interior are ousin, and the Aubrac system. Some of famous, Mt. Blanc, the highest peaks are noted for the 15,776 feet; Mt. Cenis, it; St. Gotthard great tunnel that pierces feet, of the Alps; and Mt. Viso, 12,585 feet; Pic and Pique d'Etats, 10,302 , 11,168 d'Carlitte, 10,203 feet; Néthou feet, of feet; and Mount Perdu, 10,995 Loire, Garonne the Pyrenees. The Seine, , and Scheldt are Rhine, Meuse, Rhone, country. Some the principal rivers of the are the Maine and of the chief affluents Allier, flowing into the Loire; the Dorto form dogne, that joins the Garonne , flowing into the Gironde; the Sambre the Meuse; the Moselle, flowing into the Rhine; and the Saône, flowing into the Rhone. France has over 1,500 miles of sea-coast, of which 395 is Mediterranean, 584 Atlantic, and 572 washed by the North Sea, English Channel, and Dover Straits. The principal ports are Havre, at the mouth of the Seine; Brest on the W. extremity of Brittany; Nantes, on the Loire estuary; Bordeaux, on the Garonne, having the Gironde estuary for a harbor; and Toulon on the Mediterranean. The Atlantic coast is mostly bold and rocky. The principal outlying islands are the Channel Islands in Bay St. Michael. The island of Corsica, in the Mediterranean, belongs to France. Agriculture.-France is essentially an agricultural country of great richness and fertility. There were in 1912 nearly 100,000,000 acres available for cultivation, and of this about 60,000,000 acres were under crops. The war area included some of the richest agricultural land in the country and this, for more than four years, was practically untouched, and after the conclusion of the war remained in such condition that it will be probably useless for cultivation for many years. The arable ground torn up by shell fire and troops was about 9,925,000 acres. The fact that practically all the men available were engaged in the armies or in military services, threw the burden of agricultural cultivation on the women, girls, and boys. In spite of this fact the production of agricultural products continued to an amazing extent. The decrease in production, however, is shown by comparative figures. There were planted to wheat in 1914 6,060,000 hectares (a hectare is equal to 2.47 acres); in 1919 4,579,000 hectares, and in 1920 4,896,000 hectares. There were planted in rye in 1914 1,050,000 hectares; in 1919 827,000; and in 1920 906,000. In 1914 there were planted to oats 3,590,000 hectares; in 1919 2,758,- 000; and in 1920 3,014,000. France is a great wine producing country. The production of wine in 1919 was as great as that in the pre-war period, amounting to 1,132,161,000 gallons. The Germans removed from France a great number of cattle and horses. The cattle taken by them numbered 523,000 head; the horses and mules, 367,000; and the sheep and goats, 465,000 head. According to the terms of the Peace Treaty these animals were to be replaced. In 1920 74,000 head of cattle, 4,400 horses and mules, and 43,000 sheep and goats were replaced. Mineral Production. Prior to the World War there were 41,638 mines and quarries, employing 372,517 workers. The annual yield of the mines was valued at 829,458,262 francs and of the quarries 305,955,651 francs. During the war the coal area was directly in the line of military operations and the coal mines were not worked during that time. The systematic destruction of the coal mines was carried on by the Germans. The production of coal before the war was 42,000,000 tons. The production in 1920 was about 2,000,000 tons a month. By the terms of the Peace Treaty Germany is to deliver to France a specified amount of coal a month, and France has practical possession of the Sarre Basin. See SARRE BASIN. The iron industry was of great importance during the war. There were in operation in 1914 72 blast furnaces, and in 1920 there were about 17 operated. The iron and steel industry in the invaded districts represented 85 per cent. of the total French production before the war. In 1920 this was being re-established to about 50 per cent., except the heavy steel works, of which about 14 per cent. had been restored. Of the rolling mills 3½ per cent. had been restored. The rolling mills were dismounted and machinery taken to Germany. According to the terms of the Peace Treaty this must be restored to France. Commerce. The commercial life of France was entirely disorganized as a result of the World War. In 1917 the imports were valued at 16,311,000,000 francs and the exports to 3,837,000,000 francs. During the first half of 1919 the imports exceeded the exports by 10,000,- 000,000 francs, while the imports during that period exceeded by 2,389,000,000 francs those during the same period in 1918. In spite of this enormous increase in value, the quantity had slightly diminished. This decrease was in material and manufactured products, while in food products there was an increase. As a result of the rise of prices the value of the exports, in spite of the falling off in quantity was nearly equal to that of 1913. The enormous rise of price was shown by the fact that the quantity had diminished by more than 500 per cent. The imports of food for the first eight months of 1919 amounted to 5,463,- 270,000 francs, and the total imports for the eight months of that year amounted to 18,475,706,000 francs. This was an increase of about 4,000,000,000 francs over the same period of 1918. The imports greatly exceeded the exports, and this continued throughout the year. The imports from Jan. 1 to Nov. 30, 1919, amounted to 25,336,978,000 francs, while the exports amounted to 6,223,448,000 francs, or a deficit of about 19,000,000,- 000 francs. This condition is explained, L by the fact that nearly all French exports fall under the head of luxuries, for which it was difficult to find a market. The total imports for the first five months of 1920 amounted to 13,041,000 , - 000, while the exports amounted to 5,- 970,000,000 francs. The chief articles of import are coal and coke , cast iron and steel, cereals, arms and munitions, chemical products and machinery . The chief articles of export are textiles , raw silk and yarn, leather, chemical products , and paper. Transportation. There were prior to the World War, about 25,000 miles of railway open for traffic . During the war the railroads were greatly disorganized and were used chiefly for war purposes. During the period of the war 1,400 miles of principal line were practically destroyed, while 1,480 miles of branch lines were destroyed. By 1920 the principal lines had been entirely repaired, while half of the branch lines had also been restored to use. In 1919 measures were passed providing for an increased efficiency in the operation of roads and a satisfactory organization of the great railroad systems. During 1919-1920 extraordinary efforts were made to restore normal conditions of operation of the railroads, especially of the battle area where they had suffered most severely. The great canal system also suffered greatly during the war. About 1,000 miles of canal were destroyed, of which 485 miles had been repaired by 1920 . 32,000 miles of roads were also destroyed. Of this 10,000 miles were repaired in part and 1,122 miles completely restored in 1920. Education. The public schools constitute the University of France and are divided into primary, secondary , and superior. Before the war there existed 6,445 schools. Of these, 5,345 had been re-established in 1920. The total number of pupils of school age is 6,000,000. Of this about 3,000,000 are enrolled in the public schools. There are about 70,- 000 schools and 150,000 teachers. Secondary instruction is supplied by the lycées and by the communes in the colleges, and by associations and private individuals in free establishments. There are about 120 lycées, with about 60,000 pupils, and about 200 communal colleges with about 30,000 pupils. The higher education is supplied by the state and the universities and special schools . There are 16 universities in France. They are as follows: Aix-en-Provence, Besançon, Bordeaux, Caen, Clermont- Ferrand, Dijon, Grenoble, Lille, Lyon , Montpellier , ellier, Nancy, Paris, Poitiers, Rennes, Strasbourg and Toulouse. There were in the universities in 1917 about Vol. IV-Cyc-M 15,000 pupils. Professional and technical instruction is provided in professional schools. Religion. There is no religion recognized by the state. Under the law of December 9, 1905, the churches were separated from the state, and the adherents of all creeds were authorized to form associations for public worship . All buildings actually used for public worship and as dwellings were made over to associations for public worship . There in France 17 archbishops and 68 bishops of the Roman Catholic Church. The Associations law, passed July July 1, 1901, requires religious communities to be authorized by the state and no monastic association can be authorized without a special law in each particular case. The prevailing religion is Roman Catholic. War Destruction and Reconstruction. - The following figures are prepared by André Tardieu. The population driven from their homes by the war amounted to 2,728,000. Those returned in 1920 numbered 2,023,000. There were destroyed 4,068 municipal governments , of which 4,006 had been re-established in 1920. The dwelling houses damaged or wholly destroyed numbered 574,777. Of these, 13,100 had been rebuilt and 178,- 500 had been repaired in 1920. There had been constructed 46,570 temporary houses. The temporary houses and those rebuilt and repaired sheltered 887,000 people. The remainder of the returning population found quarter in the undamaged houses. Factories destroyed numbered 11,500. Those restored to work in 1920 numbered 3,540, and those in process of rebuilding in that year numbered 3,812. Reconstruction was undertaken on a large scale by the government and also by organizations established in the United States and other countries. In many cases towns and cities in the United States undertook the reconstruction of cities and towns in France. In spite of these efforts, how- 1921 had ever, the devastated area in 192 practically been untouched. The French depended in a large measure on the indemnity to be received from Germany for the reconstruction of this area. The delay in receiving any funds from the German Government made it necessary to adopt other measures. The effect of the war on the population is indicated by the fact that the pre-war population was 37,790,000. There were mobilized 8,410,000 men out of a total subject to mobilization (19 to 50 years) of 9,420,000, or a mobilization of 89.5 per cent. of the available number. There were killed during the war 1,364,000 men or 16 per cent. of those mobilized. The total wounded numbered 3,000,000. Of these 740,000 were incapacitated by the loss of an arm, leg, eye, or otherwise. Finance. The public debt on July 31, 1914, amounted to 27,264,937,331 francs. The consolidated public debt contracted in France from July 31, 1914, to June 30, 1920, amounted to 92,434,336,500 francs. The funded debt contracted from July 31, 1914, to June 30, 1920, amounted to 19,838,736,000 francs. The floating debt on June 30, 1920, amounted to 71,- 487,930,000 francs. There were advanced from banks sums amounting to 26,020,- 000,000 francs, making a total debt on July 30, 1920, of 247,045,937,831. The Bank of France had on hand gold amounting to 5,558,603,903 francs and of silver, 247,483,930 francs, or a total of 5,806,087,833. The total expenditure in 1919 was 48,793,884,587 francs. Of this 36,675,781,168 francs was for military and special expenditures. The budget for 1920 provided for expenditures amounting to 17,861,140,000 francs. The foreign debt included $2,785,300,000 advanced by the United States Government. Army and Navy. - See ARMY and NAVY. Colonies. The colonies of France in Asia include French India, French Indo- China, Cochin-China, Annam, Cambodia, Tonking, and the territory of Kwang Chau Wan on the coast of China. In Africa are included Algeria, practically a government of Morocco; French Congo; Madagascar; Mayotte and the Comoro Islands; Réunion; French Somaliland; French West Africa and the Sahara, and Tunis. In America, they include Guadeloupe and dependencies, French Guiana; Martinique, and St. Pierre and Miquelon. In Australasia the colonies are New Caledonia and dependencies, and the French establishments in Oceania. Government. The government of France is that of a republic, the present republic dating from 1870. The executive and judiciary powers are vested in a President, chosen by the Senate and Chamber of Deputies, on joint ballot, and serving for seven years. The legislative body consists of a Senate, onethird of whose number is elected by the Senate itself, and the remainder by special bodies in each department, and in the colonies, and a Chamber of Deputies, the members of which are elected by popular suffrage, one from each arrondissement, and one additional for each 100,000 population or fraction of the same in the arrondissement, in excess of 100,000. The Cabinet of the President is composed of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, of Interior, Justice, War, Marine, Finance, Colonies, Works, Commerce, Agriculture, Labor, Liberated Territories, Hygiene, of Assistance and Social Prevision and of Pensions, Awards and War Grants. For administrative purposes France is divided into communes (local units), of which there are 37,946; cantons comprised of communes, 2,899; arrondissements, 362; departments, 90, and provinces, 37. The communes are governed locally by a mayor and municipal council (in the case of Paris, by a President and Vice-President). The cantons, usually comprising 12 communes, have no administrative officers; the arrondissement, usually consisting of 8 cantons, is governed by a sub sub-prefect. The departments, usually comprising 4 arrondissements, are each governed by a prefect, appointed by the President of the Republic. He superintends public order, commands the police, etc. Each department has a local legislative council, elected from the_cantons. History. France was originally known to the Romans by the name of Transalpine Gaul; but after its conquest by Cæsar it was divided into the four provinces of Provincia Romanorum (Provence), Gallica Aquitanica, Celtica, and Belgica. In the 5th century it was subdivided into 17 provinces, inclusive of all the territory on the E. bank of the Rhine. At this time the Germanic nations began to overrun Gaul; the Visigoths established themselves from the Loire to the Pyrenees, where they established a kingdom that lasted till about 540. Burgundians settled in the E., from the Lake of Geneva to the Rhine, and afterward stretched along the Rhône to the Mediterranean. The independent sovereignty they erected lasted till about 532. The Franks, whose dominion swallowed up those of both the foregoing tribes, had long been settled in the N.; and Pharamond, their chief in 420, is considered the founder of the French monarchy, as he was of the first or Merovingian race of Frankish kings. In 486 Clovis defeated Syagrius, the Roman general, at Soissons, and in 507, by his victory over the Visigoths, he rendered himself master of all the country between the Loire and the Garonne. On the death of Clovis, in 511, his dominions were divided into four kingdoms-those of Paris, Metz, Soissons, and Orleans. These, however, were reunited in 558. In 732 Charles Martel defeated the Saracens in the S. of France, and expelled them from the kingdom. Under Pepin and Charlemagne the country was relatively peaceful and prosperous; but after the latter's death things returned to their original state of confusion. Under his immediate successor France was again divided into four parts, and RE Loire Loine Loire Nantes Ptede St Gildas R. Bourges ER B Allier Indre R. Cher Lurcy - Levy P R Chateauroux Couleuvre Vienne La Roche-sur-Yon BOUR B VENDEEO Urcay 2 Poitiers Cerilly o SEVRES Pte. de l'Aiguille Vallon Ygrande Souvigny VIENNE I St: Sulpice les Feuilles Courcais Herisson Corne AL T Forgevielle Lussac Boussac Huriel Doyet Montmarault Pertuis Breton Maransp Baleines les Eglises Pte. des St. Martin 0. U Le. Dorat 이 Montlucon Courcon Niort Magnad Laval Bonnat Bussière ommentry Chatelus Parsac La Peyrouse Poitevine MA DE RE Mchateauponsat Guéret Busseau Evaux St. Eloy Ebreuil La Rochelle Surgeres Bellac Pertuis d' A Chenerailles Marcillat mena Loulay 46 St. Deng Intioche Villefaguan Ruffed Montemart Blond Aigrefeuille Lauriere Nantiato Villeville Lavaveix Auzances St. Gervaisna Aulnay Rochefort St. Jeand, Angeles AN CREUSE St.ge Mouton 0 St. Georges HAUTE-VIENNE Pontarior Rochetoucauld Confolens Pontarion Bellegarde Manzatoro St. Pierre 0 nde Luxe! St. Claud L Cambronde Ambazac NG zac Bourganeuf Aubusson, Poritaumur, Cambrong St Junien Nieul St Bourg 1. D'OLERON St. Savinien St.Priest 0 Matha St. Amant Marennes Riom OUMIS ontem boeuf St. Porchaire St. Hilaire St Leonard Rayere Folletin o Rochechouart La Greve Gerzat Rouillag de Boixe Limoges Eymous Gentiorment Gentioux Herment Clermont Aize La Tremblade CHARENTE Barie CHARENTE Saujon Saintes Pie. de la Coubre F St.Mathieu Ferrand Solignac Nexony pierre Buffiere Sornag Eygurande cheforst Amand Royan INFERIFURE Grave Cozes Cognac ✓ Montbroo Charente Angoulême Bussiere Mon Chalus Bussière St. Germain Pons Chateauneuf Villebois St. Germain les Belles Bugeat Tauves Pte.de Grave PUY DE 3 Badil Montagn egonza Galantimous Le Verdon Usselo Chareute Ja Valette Nontron P Gemazac Archiae Besse Meymaco Port s. Port Dieu Latour St. Germoire Soula Barbezieux ☑ Lubersac Treignac. St. Yrieix du St.Genis St. Vivien Gironde M Mirambeau Jonzac Champagne Bort Uzerche Egletons EgletongChamps Ardeso Thiviers Verteillac Brantome O Lanouaille Ste. Radégondé Neuvio Vendes Marcenat B Montendre Chalais Montagrier Juillac Seilhac S Lesparre Excideuil N Blesle Objal Tulle, St.Ciers Go Montguyon Riberac Périgueux St. Savin 91 Mauriac Massiac uet B Pauillaco EZE aplenu Hautefort Orton CORREZE Chalais Blaye Marcenais Hourtin Allanche H La Roche-St. Astier St. Aulaye 0 Donzepad Lá Niversac Thenononze Beynat Roche Etang d' Hourtin Canillac Salers Sturte de Medo CANT 45 Brives Argentat Murat Coutras PB. l'Isle D Le Liorano Terrason Castelnau Bourg Lacanau Mercoeur St. Cernin Mte du Vergto Bouffignac Montignac Meyssac Etang de Lacam s.Gironde Lussac Mussidan P Cantal Macau Ambares I 1 Martel Beaulieu Aurillac Pierre -Salignac Ste Helene Villefranche Pierrefort Blanquefort o Libourne de Lonchapt Laforce Le Bugue و Bretenoux Mur de Barrezruyere Caudera Bordeaux Velines Souillac Sarlato ✓ Payras Gramat St. Cere St. Mamet o Chaudesaignes Arès Branne Dordogne R. Bergerac Cadouino Targon Pellegrue Sigoules In Castiones Monpazier Domme Lacapelle Marival Montsalyy St. Geneviev Bassin d' Arcachon 20 Facture Bautirano Belves don 2 Entraygues GPodensac Cadillac Salviaco Cazala Maurs S ELOT Figgad C. Ferret odessco St. Maphire Monseguiuzun Arcaco Villereál Sauveterre 4 La Mothe auveterre Catus Lauzes Livernon Conques Estaing La Reole Monflanquin Cazau Langon Capaenaco Decazeville Espalion Marmande Monsempron Merce Fumel Mercnes St. Gery Cajare N Marcillac Monastier Etang de Card Hostens Fumel Auroso Belin Sanguinet Salleso Bod. Aveyron Lot R Monclaro Bazaso Bouglon Parentis en Born Touch Cahors R. Villeneuve Hignaco la Source Rodez Falsa St.Symphorien Grignolto Tournon Etang de Biscarrosse Tonneius Villeneuve uno Monteud Villefranche Mara Rodez C Captieux GARONNE Lauzerte Casteljaloux Lalbenque Rieupeyroux AVEYRON Sévérac Pissos Sore LOT Etang d' Aureilhan Labouheyre Luxey Houeilles Damazan Port Ste Marie Moliesteliu Caylus La Balvetat Le Pont St. Julien en BornNTO Agen Beauville Mimizan de Salars Solferino Paymjról Sabres St. Antonin Naucelle Cassagnes- Millau TARN ET GARONNER Lexos Labritbr br Los Lavarda O Etang de St. Julien e 4 Layrac 44 Begonnes Nerac AES B: Monesties A Moissac Aveyron Bruniguel Valence Requista Arjuzanc Roquefort Mezin das Astaffort Auvillars Uzao Morcenx St Rome de Tarn Francese Montauban Carmaux $ Rion Garonne Gabarreto Castels Lectoure Miradoux Monclara Go Mont de Marsan Cahusac Etang de Leon St. Affrique Montreal20 Condom Beaumont Gaillac Albi R. St. Serhin Montech Leon Laluque Villeneuve, A de Marsan du Gars de Lomagne Villemur Vieux Boucou Fleurance Denat Alban Le Caylar PTartas Adour Rabastens Tarn Nogaro, Vic Fezensad Mauvesin ARN Belmonto St. Paul Soustons SA Camares nac Grenade St.Sulpice Graulhet Realmont Lacaune-Ca Y Arma Capbreton Midouze Dax Montfort St.Sever Aire St. Vincent de Tirosse g Aire Aignano GERIS Cadours Graissessac Lavau. Pau Lautrec Auch Gimont Blagnac Vabre Murat un Chalosse Geaume Risele Pluisance Le Boucau Castres Angles Bédarieux Luy St. Paulo St. Esprit Pouillon Toulouse 5 Puylaurens sance Montesqu Montesqujou Saramon Garlin Castelna Ca Save St. Lys Portet. Orthez Arthez Maubourguet Mirande Lombez Salres Dourgne Boissezon St. Pons Clargues Castanet Biarritz Clargues Ronjan St Jean de Luz Bayonne reo B Revel Lembeye Mufet Mielan Olonza Villefrancheazamet rre St. Chinian Lacq Vic en Bigorre Rieumes OHAUTE GARONNE Montolieu Masseube Alzonne Caunes Lagor Lescar Pnu Gurderes Espelette Rabastens Auterive Castelnudary Navarrenxd LORC ilbao S.Sebastian OY BASSES PYRENEES Pontacq Mauleon Oloron Carbonne Castelnau Triệ Capestang Salles L Magnoac Tarbes Saverdun St. Etienne Galan Cazeres Lezignan Belpech Carcasonne Ossun Tournay St.Gaudens Montesquieu- Na De-Mas Volvestre Montréal Moux Lourdes HAUTES Pamiers Buzy 03 Bages de Port Tardet 4 Bagnères de Bigorre St. Hilaire Lagrasse Arudy Alnigne ARIEGE geles Ste Angrace Larung cta PYRENEES St. Bertrand- Varilhes Limoux AUDE Sigenn St. Lizier St. Girons Chalabre Mouthoumet a P. Aucun Ste. Marie Nst.Best x-Chaudes Durban Vitoria Lavelanet Belesta Esperaza Tuchan o dy, Midi Cauteret E Arreau Pamplona Salces S Tarascon Belclaire eix auveu Estagel Estagel St. S Vielle Aure Auluso Roquefort uchon MossetMillas Vicdessos Querigut o Rivesaltes SSL Perpignan Elospicatu Pde ourmiguieres d' Aneto P Prades Thuir Elne Colette ORIENTALES ANDORRA Mont Louis PYRENCES Arles Cere CerePort St. Laurent de Cerdans FRANCE Figueras A R. SOUTHERN PART 42 Llobregat R Gerona SCALE OF STATUTE MILES Cinca 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 0 Seure 10 Manresa N SCALE OF KILOMETERS Lerida 60 80 100 120 140 20 40 7 Igualada Mataro Badalona important towns are shown in heavy face type 8. Martin Canals Railways shown thus Barcelona 3 ° G 2° West 1° Long. F D0° E 1° C 2° B Copyright, L. L. Poates Eng. Co., 1921 Dijon Douba Besancon. Mts. du Morvan Saane A Doubs, Neuchatel N Nevers M. Neuchatel R. Villeneuve Chalon Le Creuzot s.Saone Lons le Saunier agnion SAONE E Bourhoτi Archambaul Che vagnes aud BUR SWITZERLAND 2 L. of Geneva Moulins, Bernese Alps St. Trivier Dompierre LIES Neuilly le Real Pont de Vaux St..lien Thonon • St. Léon R Rhone R Feillens Montrevel Oyonnaxer Jouvame Chablais , Macon o 이 Polliat Treffort. Le. Donjon Geneva Le Bot St. Pourcain Lapalisser o Boege Pont de Veyle 'Monsols asse Taninges. Bourg ezeria Nantu La Pacaudière Chantelle La Chapelle Those IN Challong Arfeuilles Roche Club poens S Gannat Cusset Ambierle Charlie Be Pennine Alps 46 Chatillon Pocin. Bellegarde Cruseilles Cours'o Beaujeu Belleville ille, Trivier, Marlieux Pont d'Ain Frangyo HAUTE SAVOIE Vichy Roanne Thizy Randono Thorens Faucigny Sallanches Rumilly Seyssel o Ferrières Regny Villefranche Treyoux St. Ramberto Maringues St. Just Chamonix 6 RHONE Champagne Meximieuxo Annecy Lagnieu Thônes St. Gervais Mt. Blano St. Remy Tarare O 9 Neronde St. Germain Thiers Noiretable Sathonay Alby Culoz Albens-Faverges Ugine LezouxLYONNAIS LHospital Boer Feurs von Rhone Cremieu, Belleyo Le Bourge Albertville Pont du ghateau Hospital Aix les Meyzieux Bourg St. Maurice Billoth LOVRE Chazelles Brignais Heyrioux Morestel Bains xgy Aime Olliergues Bourgoin Aoste Rive de Glero Vienne Givors 3 DOME A Mauxillanges Montbrite de Moutiers Chambery O La Tour du Pin Chamousset Bozel Ambert Les Eschelles Issoires St.Ger St. Germain Marste St.Chamond Epierre aren La Cote St. Andr Le Gd. Lemps dre Chau St. Etienne Lembron o Arlane Bonne La Chambre SAVOIE Voiron Jumeaux Rives o Roussillon Firminy Langlebourgove Gondelin La.Chase Dieu Craponne Bas St Didier St Rambert Tullins Moirans d ISERE The Modane Monistrol Briunde Paulhaguet Domene Valloires r Retournac 2 Annonay Mt Cenis St Vallier Allegre Grenoble Vinay Yssingeaux Satillicu Tony Langeac Loudes Yue- Tain St. Marcelli Vorey iSt: George A Vizille Galibiero Isere to HAUTE LOIRE. Felicien Tournon Romane 45 Villar de Lans Le Bourg Tence Chateauneuf Le Puy St Julien- N.D. de Vaux Le Monetier St. Flour Chaptehi Lamastre St.Peray La Mure Valbonnais Montgeneyre Valence Saugues La Monastier Chabeuil Corps Briancon Lair lay Le Cheylardernoux Dra Argentière La Voulte-Etoile Die Mens, Cottian Grandrieu Burzet Orcieres Crest St. Veran Livron Saillans Chatillon St. Albano Privas Aumont Pradelles Thueyts Gulllestre Chomerac DROME St Etienne Verner HAUTES ALPES Alps Nasbinals Chateauneuf ARDECHE 0 Monteliman Luc en Disis-Aspresence Gap Chorges Embrún Marsanne de Ra Aubenas Le Teil Marvejolo 4 Savines St Paul Largentiere Dieulefit La Motte LOZERE Tallard R. Le-Laucet Viviers Grignan Remuzat Mende Joyeuse Vallon Serres Turriers'o Barcelonette Ste. Enimio Chanac Villefort Rosans • La Motte Seyne St. Etienne du Caire Bourg Valrens Nyons Orplerreo St. Paul Barjac Pont Bollen Vaison Sederon Laragneo St. And6ol Tar Florac Genolhac Besse Besseres Allos . Tar Florac Colmarsp Pere Mey are Barre Ribiers BASSES ALPES St. Sauveur Mornas Gd. Gd.Combe Combe St-Esprit Peyreleau Meyrucis o Caromb Orange Alais Bagnols St.Germain St. Auban Volonn Digne Guillaumes Peyruts Carpentras Puget St Mary Treves Seynes Annot Theniers Banon Les Mées Uzès Mézel St. André o Nant Le Vigan Anduze Quissac Remoulins Villeneuve Sorques St. Saturnin Paillon orcalquier GA Castellane St.Aubah Leseno Avignon Sauve Alzono Manosque Valensole ALPES MARITIMES Greoux Moustiers C- Tournemire Ganges Mentone Chateaurena R Apt Mond St. Martin Claret Nimes EN Verdon Carlo Vence Tarascon Eyguieres Pertuis St. Remy 0- St. Valier Monaco Bellegarde B. Nice Lodève de Londres Sommières مر Compa Durance Lunel Vauvert Grasse o Cagnes Aniane Aups Mouries Mirabeau Callas Fayence Draguignan C. Kρuχ Clermont Castries une 6 Antibes Salon Rians Cannes HERAULT Montpelier St.Gilles Arles Cognac BOUCHES DU RHÔNE. Barjols VAR C.d'Antibes G.of Napoule St. Maximin Rograc Aix Aiguesmortes Paulhan Miramas Faugeres Carces Lorgues Montagnac Palavas Villeneuve Fos Agay Gardanne Frejus G.of Frejus Cuers Collobrière St. Tropez fartigues Le Luc Beziers Auriol Pézenas Aubagne Brignoles Mouths of Marignane Maze Frontignan 5 Gonfaron Besse the Rhone C. des Salins GULF OFC. Couronne Cette Marseilles Cassis Agde La Cadière Bormes C. Lardier Herault R. Sérignan Toulon La Ciotat Aude R. Hyeres Ollioudes Narbonne THE LION DU LEVANT La Seyne C.Sicié GIENS PEN CAPRAJA 1 1.DE PORT CROSS I. DE PORQUEROLLES C. Corse (To Italy) 4 La Nouvelle ILES 90 Centuri D'HYERÈS Rogliano Leucate G. of St. Florent Juri MEDITERRANEA N Laurent de la Salanque Nonza Bastia , St. Floren 6 Algajola Balasco Argeles sur Mer Castifão Murato Golu R. Calvi Vendres escovato C. Morsetta Calenzana Porta Pero-Caseveochi S.Lorenzo Galeria Calacuccia Piedicroce Cervione C. Creus G.of Porto Evisa Corte Piedicorte C Rosso Soccia G. of Rosas Vezzani Cargese SEA Salice Bocognano Aleria C.Stardi G. of Sagone 42 Sarrola Prunelli Chisonaccia 42 42 C. Feno Bastelica Sotaro Ajaccio Zicavo Solenzara SANGUINAIRES IS Sta. Maria Serra di Scop Favone Ajaccio Olmeto G. of 0 Levie C. Muro Sta. Lucia G. of Valinco 7 Porio Chiappa Pt. Sartene Vecchio CERBICALE 13, Pianottoli CORSICA C. Feno Bonifacio Same scale as 0. Pertusato CAVALLO 1. main map Str. of Bonifacio M L 5° K 9° 4° Greenw. J from H the Normans began to ravage its N. provinces; the power of the nobility also rapidly increased and the last sovereign of the Carlovingian dynasty, Louis V. in 986-987, possessed only the town of Laon. His successor, Hugh Capet, Count of Paris and Orleans, the founder of the third race of kings, governed only the Ile-de-France, Picardy, and the Orleannais; the dukes of Normandy, Brittany, Aquitaine, Gascony, Lorraine, and Burgundy, the count of Flanders, Champagne, Vermandois, Toulouse, and several minor seigneurs, shared among them the rest of the modern kingdom. Vermandois was united to the crown by Philip Augustus; Toulouse and Perche, by Louis IX.; Champagne, in 1274; the Lyonnais, Dauphiny, and Languedoc, in the 14th century; Berri, Normandy, Gascony, Burgundy, Anjou, Maine, and Provence, in the 15th; Bourbonnais, Auvergne, Brittany, Lorraine, and considerable territories in the S. W. in the 16th; and Flanders, Artois, Franche-Comté, and Alsace in the 17th century. While the monarchy gained in consistency and extent, the regal power was making constant advances. At length, under the administration of Richelieu, the nobles were stripped of all power; and there being no other body in the State, with the exception of the parliaments-which had degenerated into little else than courts of law-that enjoyed any constitutional privileges, the power of the crown was raised above control. Under the vigorous, and for a lengthened period prosperous, government of Louis XIV., the royal prerogative arrived at a maximum. During the regency and the subsequent part of the reign of Louis XV., abuses of all sorts multiplied on all hands, and were no longer concealed by the dazzling splendor and magnificence of the preceding period. Louis XVI., who ascended the throne in 1774, was actuated by the best intentions, but he wanted the firmness of purpose and capacity required in so desperate a crisis. At length, after a variety of futile expedients had been in vain resorted to, it was resolved, in 1789, to hold a meeting of the States- General, which had not been convened since 1614, for effecting the necessary changes and averting a public bankruptcy. This was the commencement of that tremendous revolution which cost Louis XVI. the crown and his life, and destroyed every vestige of the government and institutions that existed when it broke out. The atrocities connected with the Revolution were in wild, but not unnatural excesses of an uninstructed populace that had suddenly been emancipated from a state of extreme degradation. The proscriptions and anarchy by which the Revolution was accompanied continued till Napoleon attained to the supreme direction of affairs. The talents of this extraordinary man were surpassed only by his ambition, which, by overstepping all bounds, precipitated him into enterprises that ultimately led to his overthrow. In 1814 the Bourbons were replaced on the throne; but in 1830 they were re-expelled from the kingdom. The crown was then offered, under conditions, to Louis Philippe, Duc_d'Orleans, by whom it was accepted. He has the merit of having contributed, under very difficult circumstances, to the maintenance, for a lengthened period, of the peace of France and Europe. Under his reign the Revolution of Feb. 24, 1848, broke out, and resulted in the establishment of the republic, with a provisional government. A new constitution having been voted by a "Constituent Assembly" of 900 members. Prince Louis Napoleon was elected head of the republic, for four years, by by 5,562,843 votes, on Dec. 10, 1848. The prince President dissolved the National Assem Assembly by a coup d'état, Dec. 2, 1851, and having remodeled the constitution, appealed to universal suffrage, which declared him president for 10 years, by 7,439,216 votes, on Dec. 21, 1851. By a third vote, Louis Napoleon was chosen Emperor of France, by 7,- 864,216 against 31,145 votes, on Nov. 22, 1852, and assumed the title of Napoleon III., Emperor of the French, on Dec. 1, 1852. For the history of France since 1852, see NAPOLEON. The government of Napoleon III. was in all essentials an absolute monarchy. The legislative powers and the suffrage were entirely within his control. In order to quiet the dissatisfaction of the people, Napoleon entered upon an aggressive foreign gn policy. He made an alliance with England and France against Russia in 1854, and the successful outcome of the Crimean War was a personal triumph for him. Paris became the diplomatic capital of Europe, following the Congress of Paris in 1856. Napoleon, in 1859, in the rôle of the champion of the oppressed nationalities, aided Italy against Austria and obtained as a reward possession of Savoy and Nice. His attempts at intervention in Poland in 1863 and in Schleswig-Holstein in the following year, were, however, unsuccessful. Far more disastrous, however, was his invasion of Mexico and the establishment there of an empire under Maximilian of Austria. The failure of this empire and the execution of Maximilian were fatal blows at Napoleon's prestige. This was followed by the defeat of Austria in 1866 and the rise of Prussia, which threatened to deprive France of the leading position in European politics. While there was economic prosperity in France and great industrial development, there were many signs of dissatisfaction. Opposition to the Empire continued to grow until in 1869 Napoleon was obliged to grant a responsible ministry. It soon appeared, however, that this was in reality without power and that the personal government of the Emperor continued. An appeal to the people failed and the necessity of regaining his influence led Napoleon to enter once more upon an aggressive course of action in foreign affairs. This issue of the succession to the vacant Spanish throne precipitated the crisis between France and Prussia, whose foreign policy was now conducted by the genius of Bismarck. Napoleon, deceived by the false reports of his ministers in relation to the efficiency of the French army, permitted himself to be carried into the war with Prussia, which had been silently preparing for many years for such a conflict. The Franco- Prussian War was of short duration. The succession of defeats for the French ended on Sept. 2, 1870, in the surrender of Sedan. On Sept. 4, the Emperor and his descendants were declared forever excluded from the throne and France was proclaimed a republic. Following a period of disorder the first National Assembly met in February, 1871, at Bordeaux, and the Third Republic was formed. A treaty of peace was signed with Germany at Versailles on Feb. 26 and was quickly ratified by the French Government. France was obliged to cede Alsace and parts of Lorraine to Prussia, and pay an indemnity of 5,000,000,000 francs. Not until this indemnity was paid, in September, 1873, were the Prussian troops withdrawn from French territory. There were violent outbreaks of the commune in 1871, but these were suppressed. On Aug. 31 of that year, Thiers received from the National Assembly the title of President of the Republic. He resigned in 1873 and Marshal MacMahon was elected for a period of seven years. The National Assembly in 1873 adopted laws providing for the constitution of the National Legislature. MacMahon resigned in 1879 and was succeeded by Jules Grévy. In spite of attempts at the revival of the monarchy, republican sentiment continued to grow. The constitution was revised in 1884. France, in 1881, entered upon a foreign colonial policy by establishing a protectorate over Tunis. This was followed in 1883 by the enforcement of a claim of certain rights over Madagascar, which in 1896 became a French possession. In 1884 the war with China resulted in the establishment of a French protectorate over Annam and Tonking. M. Grévy was re-elected in 1885, but resigned in 1887. He was succeeded by Sadi Carnot, in whose administration occurred the Panama Canal scandal. In 1889 there was a formidable attempt to overthrow the republic by a union of all parties favoring a monarchy. This was under the leadership of General Boulanger. After promises of success, the movement failed and the republic continued to grow in strength. President Carnot was assassinated in 1894 and was succeeded by Casimir- Perier, who in 1895 resigned and was succeeded by Félix Faure. In the latter's administration and that of his successor, Emile Loubet, occurred the famous Dreyfus case, which for a time threatened the downfall of the republic. The chief political tendency of this period was the increase of the Socialist power. Alexandre Millerand, the leader of the Socialists, at this time first emerged into power. In 1901 the Associations Law brought religious congregations under government supervision. The struggle between the Church and State continued throughout the following years, and ended in the complete separation of the Church and State in France, in 1905. France had in 1891 formed an alliance with Russia, thus offsetting the importance of the Triple Alliance. This alliance was strengthened throughout the following years and cordial relations were established with Italy. These relations were chiefly due to Théophile Delcassé, who also accomplished in 1904 an agreement with England by which France abandoned certain rights in Newfoundland in return for territorial concessions in west Africa. France also recognized the predominance of Great Britain in Egypt in return for the right of France to maintain order in Morocco. The defeat of Russia in the war with Japan left France without a strong ally, and Germany seized the opportunity to bring about the dismissal of Delcassé, whose policies were regarded by the German Government as hostile to it. The Algeciras Conference, which met in 1906, gave France certain customs rights on the Algerian frontier. Germany protested in 1908 and 1911 that the French sphere of influence was too extensive. In the latter year the German Emperor sent a warship to Agadir to protect German interests. France, however, was strongly supported by England, and Ger many was obliged to give way and to recognize rights of France in Morocco. In return of this recognition France ceded to Germany 112,000 square miles of the French Congo. In 1912 France secured a practical protectorate over Morocco. The economic history of France is marked during this period by the rapid growth of industrial unionism and the development of the theory of direct action (See SYNDICALISM). General strikes occurred in 1909 and in 1910, but these were suppressed by the prompt action of Premier Briand who shattered the railroad strike by threatening military punishment. Raymond Poincaré was elected President in 1913. Threatening conditions in Europe, especially in Germany, led to demands for an increase in the size of the army, and this was accomplished. During the closing months of 1913, disturbances in Alsace-Lorraine, particularly in Zabern, increased the growing hostility between France and Germany. Germany's policy of aggressiveness and militarism foreshadowed the outbreak of the World War. For an account of France's part in this great struggle, see WORLD WAR. The progress of the war was marked by many important political events. The first of these was the assassination of M. Jaurés, the leader of the Unified Socialists, in 1914. The French Cabinet was reorganized on Aug. 26, 1914, with M. Viviani as Prime Minister. On Sept. 3, as a result of the possible danger of the German occupation of Paris, the French Government was removed to Bordeaux, where it remained until December of that year. Delcassé resigned as Foreign Minister on Oct. 30, 1914. On Dec. 2, 1915, General Joffre was placed in supreme command of all the French armies. Changes in the Cabinet were made during 1916 as a result of criticism in respect to the conduct of the war. There were, indeed, 1 throughout the struggle, continuous changes in the ministry, which continued until the formation, in 1917, of a new ministry under Clemenceau. This continued throughout the duration of the war. A number of prominent persons were involved in charges of disloyalty and treason. These included Malvy, Mimster of the Interior; Caillaux, a former Prime Minister; and Senator Humbert. There were also treason charges against the editors of the Bonnet Rouge, Bolo Pasha, and others. All these men were charged with being concerned either directly or indirectly in treasonable dealings with the enemy. They were all eventually tried and found guilty, with the exception of Senator Humbert, who was acquitted. France was represented at the Peace Conference chiefly by M. Clemenceau, who was one of the chief figures in the deliberations of that body on June 27, 1919. The Senate passed the Electoral Reform Bill which had already been passed by the Chamber. The Peace Treaty was ratified by the Chamber of Deputies on Oct. 9, 1919, and the military agreements between France, Great Britain, and the United States were also ratified on Oct. 13. On Oct. 19 the French War Parliament, which had been in session since the summer of 1919, came to an end. M. Clemenceau resigned as premier on Jan. 18, 1920. President Poincaré completed his term of office on Feb. 17, 1920, and was succeeded by Paul Deschanel. During May there were riots in Paris and a strike was begun for the nationalization of the railroads. These strikes were prevented by a threat of Premier Millerand to dissolve the General Federation of Labor. Deschanel resigned the presidency on Dec. 10 on ac count of ill health, and was succeeded by Alexandre Millerand. Georges Leygues became Prime Minister. The chief efforts in France during 1920 and 1921 were for the reconstruction of the country from the devastations of the war. The financial and economic conditions are described in another portion of this article. France depended largely for rehabilitation upon the indemnities or reparations to be received from Germany. The Supreme Council finally decided that the total reparations should be about $56,000,000,000, to be paid in a definite period of years. At a session of the Supreme Council held in London in March, 1921, Germany refused to accept this sum and as a consequence French troops were despatched to occupy the German cities of Düsseldorf, Duisburg, and Ruhrort on March 7, 1921. See PEACE TREATY; ALSACE-LORRAINE; WORLD WAR; VERDUN, MARNE, PICARDY, AISNE, BAT- TLES OF; LEAGUE OF NATIONS; TREATY OF VERSAILLES. The following are the Presidents of the Third Republic: Louis Adolph Thiers, 1871-1873. M. E. Patrice Maurice MacMahon, 1873-1879. François Paul Jules Grévy, 1879-1887. Marie François Sadi-Carnot, 1887- 1894. Jean Casimir-Perier, 1894-1895. Félix Faure, 1895-1898. Emile Loubet, 1898-1906. Armand Falliéres, 1906-1913. Raymond Poincaré, 1913-1920. Paul Deschanel, 1920. Alexandre Millerand, 1920- (JACQUES
France a country of southwestern Europe
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a country of southwestern Europe. It may be said to occupy the shoulder and neck of Europe, the extension of which into a head forms the peninsula of Spain and Portugal. France has an area of 207,054 square miles, being one-eighteenth of all Europe. It has a coast line of about 1,300 miles on the Atlantic and 456 miles on the Mediterranean. Its Spanish frontier is 419 miles in length. The Belgian, German, Swiss, and Italian frontier is 1,156 miles long. These land frontiers are composed almost entirely of mountain chains traversed by natural passes through which commerce may flow. With the exception of the Rhone, which flows southward into the Mediterranean, the longer rivers of France flow northwestward into the Atlantic. The longest line that can be drawn on French territory runs from the southeast to the northwest, a distance of 670 miles. CHARACTERISTICS. France's surface is greatly diversified. The mountains are low and rolling. Streams are numerous. Over two hundred rivers are navigable. Unlike Switzerland the country is devoid of lakes. There are three well defined climatic regions--regions of wheat, wine, and oils. The northwestern region, including Brittany, has fogs, mist, and a cold summer like that of England. The Mediterranean region has hot, dry summers, suitable to the growth of the fig, the olive, and the citron. The intervening country is a land of vineyards and wheat fields, with abundant rainfall and clear, sunny skies. Nearly half of the people are engaged in agriculture. Nearly half of France is plow land; four-fifths of the remainder is in orchard, vineyard, or meadow; less than one-tenth of the entire area is unproductive. At the death of a landholder his property is divided equally among his children. For this reason there are many small farms under a high state of cultivation. The climate and soil are so varied that the productions of France are the same as those of Europe at large. All the desirable vegetables, fruits, and cereals known are raised. The poultry, horses, cattle, and swine of France are noted for their excellence. For general purposes Norman horses are the most desirable known. They have speed, endurance, and strength. INDUSTRY AND THRIFT. One passing through France is impressed by the apparent contentment and thrift of the inhabitants. Pauperism is not prevalent. There is little emigration. There are many indications of economy. The working people dress within their means. Their holiday garb is more often a clean working suit than an expensive one worn in imitation of the rich. By means of soups seasoned with vegetables, the housewife understands the art of making a piece of meat go as far as possible. France is one of the richest countries in the world but there are few millionaires. The French are a race of small savers. At the close of the Franco-Prussian War , an immense war indemnity of $1,000,000,000 was borrowed from the working people without difficulty. The chief coin is the franc. The twenty franc gold piece is worth somewhat less than five dollars. PRODUCTIONS. As mentioned above, all the cereals, including Indian corn, thrive. Beet sugar is produced in immense quantities. The cultivation and manufacture of tobacco are carried on by the government. Manufactured tobacco is sold in every postoffice. No other dealers are permitted. The business brings in an annual revenue of approximately $80,000,000, about one-half of which may be considered profit. The provinces of Champagne, Burgundy, and Bordeaux are celebrated for their wines. The annual production is almost beyond belief. It amounts to nearly 2,000,000,000 gallons a year. Wine is the national beverage. Normandy is celebrated for its cider. In southern France the leaves of the mulberry tree serve as food for the silkworm. The silk industry of France centers in the city of Lyons. The annual production of silk is valued at $100,000,000. MINERALS. For so rich a country, France is singularly deficient in minerals. There are small coal fields in various parts of the country, but the only coal measures of great importance are situated near the Belgian frontier. Iron is mined chiefly in the same region. Lead is abundant. A little gold has been found in the river beds. Small quantities of zinc, copper, arsenic, and nickel are produced. Alum and common salt are produced in abundance from the lagoons and salt marshes of the coast. France is celebrated for its pottery clays. The porcelains of Sevres, Limoges, and Bayeux are noted. GOVERNMENT. During the first decade of the twentieth century the poulation of France may be placed roughly at 40,000,000. It is increasing slowly. Since the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. France has been a republic. National affairs are intrusted to a national assembly consisting of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. The deputies are elected for four years; the senators for nine years. The president of the republic is elected for seven years by a majority vote of the members of the two chambers sitting as a single body. There are eighty-seven departments, corresponding to our counties. The departments are divided into communes, corresponding to our towns or townships. The commune has its own local government elected by universal suffrage. EDUCATION. Elementary instruction is obligatory. Each commune is obliged to maintain public schools. Children are required by law to attend. All religions are equal in the eye of the law. Any sect which numbers 100,000 adherents is entitled to state aid. In 1904 the Roman Catholics were granted 40,000,000 francs; the various Protestant sects, something less than 2,000,000; the Jews, 160,000 francs. COMMERCE. While not primarily a commercial nation, the commerce of France is still very great. There are about 27,000 miles of railroad and about 3,000 miles of canals. There are about 11,000 postoffices with 90,000 miles of telegraph wires. Telephone systems have been built in every direction. About 15,000 sailing vessels and over 1,000 steamers are engaged in coastwise commerce, or in plying between the coasts of France and foreign countries, or between the home country and its colonies. The chief ports named in order of importance are Marseilles, Havre, Dunkirk, Bordeaux, Boulogne, Dieppe, and Calais. DEFENSE. The frontiers of France are defended by over one hundred fortresses, seventeen of which are fortifications of great strength. In addition, Paris, the capital, is surrounded by a ring of over fifty batteries. Young men are required to serve three years in the army, and are subject to be called upon for military service at any time between the ages of twenty and forty-five. The number of men liable to military service is put at 4,350,000. The number under discipline in a time of peace is about half a million. France is regarded as one of the five great powers of Europe. COLONIES. Algeria is an integral part of the French republic. There are important colonial possessions in Farther India. The most important possessions are Cambodia, Cochin China, Tunis, Congo, Madagascar, and Guiana. STATISTICS. The following statistics are the latest to be had from trustworthy sources: Land area, square miles 207,054 Population (1906) 39,252,245 Paris 2,763,393 Marseilles 517,498 Lyons 472,114 Bordeaux 251,917 Lille 205,602 Toulouse 149,438 St. Etienne 146,788 Nice 134,232 Nantes 133,247 Le Havre 132,430 Rouen 118,459 Nancy 110,570 Rheims 109,859 Toulon 103,549 Amiens 90,920 Limoges 88,597 Brest 85,294 Nimes 80,184 Dijon 74,113 Grenoble 73,022 Orleans 68,614 Tours 67,601 Calais 66,627 Versailles 54,820 Avignon 48,312 Caen 44,442 Number departments (counties) 86 Members of senate 300 Representatives 584 Salary of president $120,000 Number voters (1908) 10,231,000 Annual national expenditure $800,000,000 Valuation of property $45,000,000,000 National indebtedness $6,000,000,000 Acres under plow 75,000,000 Corn, bushels 15,000,000 Wheat, bushels (1906) 219,000,000 Oats, bushels 207,000,000 Buckwheat, bushels 13,000,000 Rye, bushels 48,000,000 Tobacco, pounds 54,000,000 Wine, gallons (1908) 1,320,000,000 Horses 3,165,000 Mules 195,000 Asses 361,000 Cattle 14,000,000 Sheep 17,000,000 Swine 7,000,000 Goats 1,450,000 Potatoes, acres 3,700,000 Value of fisheries $22,000,000 Value of orchard products $40,000,000 Miles of railway 29,000 Number of passengers 460,000,000 Export of silk and silks $110,000,000 Mineral output $127,000,000 Coal mined, tons 36,000,000 Iron ore, tons 9,000,000 Output of pig iron, tons 3,500,000 Quarry products $50,000,000 Deposits in savings banks $1,000,000,000 Depositors 12,700,000 Teachers in public schools 115,000 Pupils enrolled 4,500,000 Number of postoffices 12,600 Letters and postcards 1,443,000,000 See Brittany ; Napoleon; Paris ; Seine ; Silk ; Wine ; Bordeaux ; Boulogne ; Champagne ; Burgundy ; Rouen ; Bourbon ; Huguenot; Normandy; Valois The condition of agriculture brought about by our subdivision of land, and the distance from each other of the morsels belonging to one owner, condemn a man to work such as animals and machines ought to execute, and not only reduce him to the level of a beast, but curse the soil with sterility.--Lafargue. Altho the French laborer is frequently proprietor of the land, and thus adds a little profit to his wages, he does not live as well as the English farm-laborer. He is not so well fed, not so well clothed, and is less comfortably lodged. He eats more bread, but it is generally made of rye with the addition of maize, buckwheat, and even chestnuts. . . . He rarely eats meat. I am acquainted with parts of France where people live on seventy centimes (fourteen cents) a day.--Lavergne. Nor have the results of peasant proprietorship in France been more satisfactory from a financial standpoint. "Proprietors" they may be in name, but few of the peasants hold their land free of mortgage and many of them are heavily indebted besides. They not only cultivate the soil under the most laborious conditions, but they must meet, as best they can, the demands of the State, the usury of the money-lender, and also the fees of the lawyer who fattens alike on the land transfers and on the quarrels and lawsuits.--Pratt. Of the 8,000,000 proprietors in France, 3,000,000 are on the pauper roll, exempt, that is, from personal taxation; while of the remainder, 600,000 proprietors paid contributions to the State amounting to only five centimes each. Getting rid of one order of landlords and their rents, they have subjected themselves to another, tho invisible, order--the mortgagees, and to their heavier and more rigid rents.--Lecouteux.
France 1922. The question of German reparations continued to occupy
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
1922. The question of German reparations continued to occupy a foremost place in the foreign and domestic counsels of France, leading early in January, 1923, to French occcиpation of the Ruhr industrial district of Germany. (See REPARATIONS, p. 94.) A series of conferences among the Entente premiers on this reparations question and on Near Eastern questions developed wide differences between France and England and continually threatened a breach in the Entente. In the Near East, French policy appeared at first to be generally favorable to the Turkish Nationalists, but later, at Lausanne, this attitude was changed and France in general stood with England at that conference against the extreme pretensions pretensions of the Turks. The failure of Germany to pay reparations and France's own advances to her devastated areas and to her soldiers injured in the war left the government at the end of 1922 facing an enormous deficit. Reconstruction of roads, railways, and canals in the devastated areas was reported to be practically complete at the close of 1922, but over 200,000 buildings destroyed or seriously damaged in the war remained to be rebuilt, including about 3,000 factories. Of 9,116,383 acres of land laid waste, there were still about 4,000,000 acres to be readapted to culture. Two agreements with Germany for reparation in kind were in partial operation in the last months of 1922. By the first agreement, signed originally at Wiesbaden, August, 1921, Germany had agreed to deliver to France seven billion marks' worth of material in three years for the reconstruction of French dev-
France French ANATOLE THIBAULT)
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
French ANATOLE THIBAULT), a novelist and poet of great perfection and distinction of style; born in Paris, April 16, 1844. His first volume of "Poems" was published in 1873, and his dramatic The poem "Corinthian Revels" in 1876. humorous story "Jocaste and the Lean Cat" (1879) was received with indifference, but he had brilliant success with "The Crime of Sylvester Bonnard" (1881); "The Yule Log" (1881); and "The Wishes of Jean Servien" (1881). His other works include "Our Children: Scenes in Town and in the Fields" (1886); "Queen Pédauque's Cook-Shop"; "Opinions of the Abbé Jérôme Coignard" of Epicurus" (1893); "The Garden ; ; Abeille"; "My Friend's Book"; "Our Children"; "Balthazar"; "Thaïs"; "Literary Life"; "Alfred de Vigny"; etc. He was elected to the French Academy in 1884.
France 1922 FORDNEY-McCUMBER TARIFF (See UNITED STATES
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
1922 FORDNEY-McCUMBER TARIFF (See UNITED STATES, 1922-23.) FOREIGN DEBTS. (British Debt Settlement). An agreement for the payment of Great Britain's debt to the United States was reached in January, 1923, between the American Foreign Debt Commission and a British Commission headed by Stanley Baldwin, Chancellor of the Exchequer. The total of the debt, to be covered by British bonds issued to the United States at par, was fixed at $4,600,000,000, the principal of the bonds to be paid in in increasing instalments over a period of 62 years. The rate of interest on unpaid balances was fixed at 3 per cent for 1923 and 3½ per cent thereafter. Congressional approval of the agreement was given in February, 1923.
France JOSEPH IRWIN, a United States senator from Maryland
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
JOSEPH IRWIN, a United States senator from Maryland, born in 1873. He graduated from Hamilton College in 1895. He studied in Germany and at the Clark University. He graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Baltimore, in 1903, and engaged in the practice of his profession in Baltimore from 1905 to 1909. He was a member of the Maryland Senate and in 1916 was elected United States Senator for the term 1917-1923. He was a frequent contributor to magazines on scientific, economic, and political subjects.
France ISLE OF. See MAURITIUS
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
ISLE OF. See MAURITIUS.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Most of the eight entries under this headword describe France the nation as it stood between 1892 and 1921 -- a Third Republic with a global colonial empire and around 39 million people, freshly victorious in 1918. That state is gone: the Fourth Republic followed in 1946, de Gaulle's Fifth Republic in 1958, Algeria became independent in 1962, and France is now a founding member of the European Union, a nuclear power since 1960, with about 68 million inhabitants and the euro in place of the franc since 2002. The odd item out, the Encyclopaedia of Occultism's 1920 survey of magic in France, has aged differently: its Salic-law fines for the woman who eats a man and for the carrier of the copper vessel are still cited by historians of early medieval belief, but Eliphas Levi's tale of cloud-ships and mass killings of sylph-travellers under Pepin is now traced to Bishop Agobard of Lyon's ninth-century tract against the belief in a sky-land called Magonia, and the great witch persecutions are dated firmly to the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries, not the Merovingian and Carolingian courts.
Written for this edition, 2026.